


The "You" You Are

by hummingverb (laetissima)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Aftermath of Spinel, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Partly an Excuse to Share Headcanon, Pearl Solidarity, Pre-Independence Pearl, Sadie and the Suspects, The Reef, Trying to Explain the Handwaved World of Gem Physiology, Um Greg Universe, good guy Greg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24622888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laetissima/pseuds/hummingverb
Summary: “Independent Together” fails. Sure, they beat Spinel, and most things get back to normal, but Pearl does not. This pleases no one.It’s going to take more than a duet to help her become who she is.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 78





	1. Steg and the Evaconcertation

Bodies of every kind pressed against them, moving unpredictably and yelling under the combined shine of the moon and light of glow sticks. Vibrations from the massive speakers rattled her mass and tickled her gem.  
  
Right in front of her, some gigantic Amethyst was singing and touching her face, but she really couldn’t afford to take her attention away from her Universe. He could require her services at any time, especially with his frequent energy input and private waste disposal habits. Right now, though, he just looked uncomfortable and disappointed. She was getting nervous about that, and widened her eyes a little further. The "trusting and cheerful" look was a classic for a reason.  
  
“Hey, Pearl!” The Amethyst was small now.  
  
It would be rude to converse with another gem in her owner’s presence, without permission, so Pearl just continued smiling.  
  
“Hey. Hey! Hey look at me!” The Amethyst shifted into a much larger form and grabbed both of Pearl’s shoulders, lifting her off the ground. Pearl struggled to escape—the Amethyst was blocking her view of her Universe, but her purple grasp was tight. “Pearl, you gotta be you again. You’re freaking me out, and we need you. Like, normal you, doing what you want and definitely not caring what Greg thinks. You don’t have to just be his servant or whatever. Just—be the you who does what you think is right, okay? You have to let this work.”  
  
Her Universe wasn't stopping the Amethyst, so Pearl stopped trying to get away. Stiff in her grip, Pearl internally panicked. Where was Um Greg? What if he needed her? What if he really did want her to stop serving him, and he was going to let this Amethyst crush her completely? Was she that terrible a pearl? What was the Amethyst talking about? Why did nothing make sense? Why did they all think she was someone else? Where was he?  
  
Her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to silence her thoughts and accept whatever was coming. But then her feet felt the ground. She looked up. The Amethyst wiped her hands on her pants and shrank to her smaller size. Pearl glanced above her, expecting Um Greg’s mane somewhere in the vicinity. The Spinel and the cross-type fusion were dancing nearby, but none of the humans around her was her master.  
  
“Um Greg?!” She tried to look everywhere at once. The back door? The wall, lined with humans holding snacks and avoiding eye contact? Next to the glow stick wielding drummer? The stage? The stage! There he was! With Pink Diamond? She started towards him, but an explosion of light and smoke surrounded him. When it dissipated, a single gem was posed centerstage. This was not good.  
  
"My Universe! Um Greg!" Pearl rapidly scanned the room. Her resonance vibrated faster. She should have been able to hone in on him instantly, but he was nowhere.  
  
"Um Greg Universe! My Universe!" This was bad. Terrible. Possibly the worst thing imaginable. But he had to be somewhere.  
  
The gem onstage started talking.  
  
It was… not her Universe, exactly. It looked wrong and sounded wrong. But at the same time, it was him. Some inner sense—as well as a bit of logic—told her so. Some part of it was Um Greg, and it had a gem strongly reminiscent of Pink Diamond’s. Steven’s. Perhaps they’d fused, like that disturbing Sapphire/Ruby. But that meant he was now this new entity, and at the same time, not existent at all. Pearl had no idea what to conclude from that. Nowhere in her programming did it set out instructions for when one’s owner fused. After all, no Pearl owner had the need or opportunity, elite aristocrats as most were. She was, however, built with an inescapable reaction to separation from her owner.  
  
First: fear. Yes, that had effectively kicked in. Even made of hard light, gems had optionally functional organ systems, a remnant of their ancient heritage. Pearl’s pulse shook her entire form as it skyrocketed, lungs fluttering too fast, sweat shining on her skin.  
  
Second: heightened perception. Check. She could see every hair on the singer’s face, hear every rustle of fabric, smell every musky human odor. It wasn’t helping her get her Universe back. Though it was perhaps causing this involuntary foot motion that accompanied the singer’s music.  
  
Third: despair. A pearl’s life was exclusively devoted to devotion. Without an owner, Pearl was nothing. Every particle in her needed Um Greg, and without him, she was worthless until she was Reef reset again for a new owner. But he wasn’t… he wasn’t exactly gone, was he? She tried convincing herself he was just half of the gem onstage, still a perfectly whole version of himself, just combined with another thing. Her instincts weren’t having it.  
  
‘HE’S GONE FOREVER AND THERE IS NO POINT IN EXISTING BECAUSE HE NO LONGER EXISTS YOU LOST HIM AND FAILED AT EVERYTHING YOU WERE MEANT TO DO--’  
  
A pink buzz of energy abruptly enveloped her, and she squawked. Humming inside her, like a slight electric shock she couldn’t discharge, the pink energy felt intimately familiar.  
  
She was sure now, from an intellectual standpoint, that this was a fusion of Um Greg and Pink Diamond. Her Universe was still intact and well. But her mental voice was still screaming frantic variations on dramatic angst, and it was hard to multitask, especially when the pink energy suddenly started levitating her above the crowd.  
  
‘His energy is literally holding you at this instant.’  
  
‘YOUR SOLE PURPOSE IS DESTROYED.”  
  
‘It may not look or sound like him--’  
  
‘IT DOESN’T LOOK OR SOUND LIKE HIM!’  
  
‘But it’s the only logical--’  
  
‘HE’S GONE AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM.’  
  
‘It’s obvious he--’  
  
‘AND IT’S UTTERLY HOPELESS AND YOU’LL NEVER GET HIM BACK AND YOU ARE DOOMED TO A LIFE DEVOID OF ANY MEANING.’  
  
The singer grabbed her arms and swung her up to him. He was belting something about being autonomous, which was a ridiculous sentiment and completely useless in this situation.  
  
And apparently it was her turn to sing, judging by the fusion’s expressive eyebrows.  
  
Well, all right then. Her inner conflict certainly wasn’t producing any helpful results, so may as well melodically express her useless feelings.

“What does he want me to tell him?  
What does he want me to be?”

The fusion’s charming smile dropped, and the eyebrows pulled together. He looked desperate, though she wasn’t entirely positive why.

“I don’t have any dreams  
Except his, though it seems  
I’m failing those; I wish I could be what he needs.”

He was clearly disappointed, but he came in for the chorus, a plea to be independent together, whatever that meant. One of his sweaty hands scooped her closer. He tossed her into the sky. Her dress fluttered in the warm breeze. Below, the city’s light was concentrated: most of the families had left their homes dark, but the venue dazzled, and the giant injector on the hill let off a strange pink glow. Pearl looked up at the fusion. He was still singing, now throwing in a well-timed phrase about flying. He wanted her to do something spectacular, she was sure. Um Greg and Pink Diamond and the Amethyst all seemed to want her to be something else, and for her Universe’s sake, she wished she could. But despite the fusion’s stellar guitar solo, she could not recall any of what they insisted was her “real self.” An inkling, perhaps, that this wasn’t the first time she’d felt the agony of losing everything. It was despair she was already acquainted with, somehow. And maybe there was a click of a door unlocking—a program becoming unencrypted, a layer growing deep inside her. She tried to grasp that feeling, the thing that felt like a foreign soul in hers, but it slipped deeper.  
  
The pink energy coating her fizzled, and they started falling. He didn’t stop singing, but his fingers stumbled over a chord, and they fell faster. A flicker of pink energy zapped at her again. It wasn’t enough. A gem would easily handle the fall, perhaps at the expense of physical form for a short time. But would Um Greg?  
  
Pearl wriggled through the sky, calculating which position would maximize her absorption of the force of his fall. She was in place now, preparing for impact with the stage.  
  
But before they hit, a thick cord snagged them both, dangling them inches over the concrete. The Amethyst was perched on a lighting scaffold, whip in hand.  
  
The fusion erupted in rays of light, then burst into Pink Diamond and Um Greg, who tumbled out of the whip’s hold.  
  
“Um Greg!” Pearl struggled out of her own safety line. She knelt by her owner, scanning him for any possible problems. Behind her, she heard the Spinel talking to Pink Diamond.  
  
“You took her with you? But... you weren’t going to take me. You were going to leave me behind!”  
  
“Spinel, wait!” Pink Diamond got up and ran after her. Pearl spared them a fleeting glance, but she had more important things to do. Um  
  
Greg seemed worried, but not physically damaged, so she helped him up.  
  
The Amethyst hopped down, and the three of them took to a corner of the venue while Sadie and the Suspects moved their gear back in place.  
  
“Well, that was a disaster,” the Amethyst muttered. She glanced at Pearl, then squinted at the figures running towards the temple. “I’m gonna go give Steven a hand. Call me or something if anything changes.”  
  
She headed down the beach, and Um Greg stared at Pearl, his shoulders slumping gradually as she carefully maintained neutral pleasantness. Finally, he sighed.  
  
“Guess we’ll just have to hope Steven gets through to Spinel, somehow.” Out of nowhere, he gasped and slapped his face with both hands.  
“Oh man! Garnet!” He ran back into the crowd, Pearl trotting close behind.  
  
“If you’re looking for the Sapphire/Ruby fusion, I believe she followed the Spinel,” she called.  
  
Um Greg whirled around. “Really? You sure?”  
  
She nodded. “I can show you a brief video recording of the incident, if you’d like.” Her gem projected a blue-tinted screen of Spinel storming out of the warehouse with Steven in hot pursuit. ‘Garnet’ jogged after them, glancing back just once.  
  
“I don’t know whether to panic or be relieved, but thanks,” Um Greg said. “Amethyst can probably handle things—” He paused and examined Pearl. “Actually, I think you need to be with them. Just in case there’s a major event. Like a major, life-changing event. Like the kind where you’re a totally different person afterwards. Ya never know, right?”  
  
“Are you implying that I should leave your presence to lend assistance to those other gems?”  
  
She’d just found him again! Pearls’ owners typically permitted them out of sight only for short periods, and he had no guard, and in that human form, which she was discovering to be extremely weak and needy, he was in constant danger.  
  
“Yup! I’ll be fine here, and they could really use your help!”  
  
This was a risky move, but she really couldn’t leave him in good conscience. She was going to have to disagree. With her owner. Diplomatically. “Perhaps you’d prefer to accompany them as well? Pi—Steven is your… Son? And ‘Garnet’ is your responsibility. Certainly they’d benefit from your wisdom.”  
  
Um Greg scratched his neck and looked down. “Uh, I'm more of a liability when they're doing gem stuff."  
  
"Then I should really stay with you, in the event of 'gem stuff' in your vicinity, my Um Greg Universe."  
Pearl beamed at him, but he groaned and raked through his hair.  
  
"Pearl! Please, just go! I don't want to order you around, but this is important! You’re… dismissed? I don’t know!”  
  
She stopped smiling. Indeed, it didn't count as an order, but he really did want her to leave. That was… fine. Most Pearls weren’t on constant duty. And lots of Pearls ran errands. And of course she would do whatever it took to please him. She had just assumed that would mean catering to his every whim and praising his name at any opportunity, not this near-heretical independence he was expecting.  
But like any good Pearl, she would do what she had to do to make him happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Happy to meet you! This entire story is done and has gone through two major edits (and needs at least one more, but isn't going to get it). Constructive criticism welcome! 
> 
> This version of Pearl hit me in weird ways, made me relate and really think about why I related. So I wrote a little scene that turned into 52k words that I cut down to 40k. And then I decided it would be great practice to try to illustrate something for each chapter (and wow, it was good practice. I didn't do the art in order, so it's not a linear progression, but I can tell which I did first), and then I decided to try to compose music for the songs in future chapters, and then I ignored it for... A while... But now, 6+ months after I started, I guess this is happening! Hope you have a good time :)


	2. Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

Pearl found the others in one of the chasms the pink poison had carved. She watched for a moment to gauge the situation: ‘Garnet’ pulling Pink Diamond and the tiny Amethyst into a hug, the Spinel launching another elastic attack, an instant retaliation from ‘Garnet’ while the Amethyst scooped up Pink Diamond and leaped up to Pearl.

“What are you doing here? Greg didn’t come, did he?” The Amethyst didn’t look at her, focused on Pink Diamond instead.

“He requested that I offer my assistance here.”

The Amethyst rolled her eyes and glared at her. “Yeah. Great. That’s gonna be super helpful.”

Pearl stood up straighter. “I will perform any function requested by my Universe, and he requested that I help you.”

Pink Diamond was still kneeling on the ground, breathing too fast for a human, and Amethyst gave him another quick glance before she grinned at Pearl. Not a happy grin, though. 

“So you’re gonna help us? Let’s see what you got!” She grabbed Pearl’s hips and flung her into the air.

Half of Pearl was confused about why all the gems here liked to throw her places, but the other half was already in action, sliding a glaive out of her gem and hurling it towards the Spinel as she flew. That half knew exactly how to time a landing on the giant injector, and had another glaive ready before her confused half realized she even had weapons in her gem.

“Yeeeeeeeah Pearl!” The Amethyst flung the end of her whip towards Pearl. “Don’t think, just go!” 

Pearl caught it and wrapped it around the shaft of her glaive. A well-aimed throw lodged it in the wall just behind Spinel, and Garnet flicked her backwards. Spinel fumbled over the makeshift tripwire, spaghetti limbs flailing. One flew the wrong direction: straight into Garnet’s hands. She swung Spinel up. Pearl jumped towards Amethyst, who caught her legs and swung her down to snag the rubbery pink hands soaring through the sky. The arc’s trajectory continued, slamming Spinel into the glass of her own injector.

Pearl and Amethyst landed next to Garnet, weapons drawn. Amethyst shaped her whip into a lasso and flung it around Spinel, yanking her back to the trio.

Garnet stepped out of the way with perfect timing, and Pearl twirled her spear in a pattern that struck Spinel five times in quick succession. Spinel bounced against the canyon wall, and Pearl flipped backwards to make an opening for the others. Garnet gripped her shoulders, nodding to Amethyst. A few coils of her whip, and Spinel was trapped. She wriggled out of Garnet’s grip, but Amethyst jerked the end of the cord and sent her spinning at top speed into one of the chasm’s walls. A rain of rocks tumbled down on top of her. She thrust a springy foot out and pounced on Garnet.

Wrong move, it turned out. Garnet’s gauntlets held her, strong and immovable, while Amethyst wound herself up into a violently spinning wheel of purple. Garnet tossed her onto Amethyst, and her elastic limbs tangled in the vortex. Snared like Greg’s hair in a vacuum (it hadn’t happened, but Greg had been very clear about where not to use the vacuum), they zoomed up the side of the canyon and spiraled around the base of the injector until they slowed to a messy heap on the top edge of the drill. Garnet hoisted Pearl and threw her towards them (third time in an hour, a distant part of her complained), and she snagged Spinel’s shirt on the tip of her glaive as she flew past. Amethyst’s whip caught her around the waist before she crossed the edge of the cliff, swinging her back around to the glass of the injector. Pearl spun out of the cord and dropped down right before impact, but Spinel splatted against the glass reservoir. The Crystal Gems looked up at her.

Her nose wrinkled, and she laughed. “This is three—four—five, if you count that weakling over there—against one, and you’re still losing this bad? Pink Diamond’s court has reeeeeeallly gone downhill, huh?” She didn’t wait for a response, doing handsprings up the side of the injector until she was out of range. A deep breath, a blast from her finger-foghorn, and pink poison exploded out of the drill.

Garnet picked up Steven, and the four ran to the crest of the hill above town.

Pearl’s confused half caught up that point, now that the gem equivalent of adrenaline wasn’t rushing through her and forcing muscle memory to the surface. She dropped her glaive. It twinkled into static and disappeared. Eyes wide, she straightened and crossed her legs and wrists in perfect Pearl position.

The Amethyst huffed and rolled her eyes. Shouldering Pearl out of the way, she pointed down at the town, where a toxic flash flood was crashing down the streets. 

“Any of you guys got a plan here?”

‘Garnet’ opened her mouth, but an interruption burst from the sky.

“Let’s get down to bismuth!” The Bismuth from Little Homeworld hung onto a Lapis’s hands as she flew on water wings over the slope. Screaming in either terror or battle fury, a Peridot sped in on her trash can lid, and a pink portal opened next to her. Pink Diamond’s lion leapt through it with a roar. Astride him, a human girl brandished a pink sword and shouted her own war cry.

Pearl maintained her agreeable-neutrality smile. Earth was completely insane.

The gems pieced together a haphazard plan. Pink Diamond insisted on going up to talk to the Spinel, despite several very reasonable arguments against that course.

But ‘Garnet’ had the last word. “You can do it, Steven. We believe in you.”

He set out on his self-inflicted mission, and the Little Homeworld gems rushed to their assignments, collecting humans and delivering them to the safety of the evacuation site.

The two remaining next to her looked at each other.

“So uh,” the Amethyst said. “What do we do? Alexandrite would be awesome, but…” 

“Yes, she can’t fuse with us. Sugilite is better than either of us alone this time, though.” The fusion inspected Pearl. Her visor was opaque, and it made Pearl nervous. Pearl looked away, catching sight of the Amethyst’s whip curled in her hand. The memories were receding, but its density had felt familiar. Her own gem’s weapons had felt familiar, easy and comfortable in her hands as she and the other gems had worked in harmony to attempt to destroy someone. Whatever her previous life had been, she wanted none of it. Pearls weren’t supposed to be able to do any of what she had just unconsciously done. 

Her fingers twitched, though, curved like they still held the smooth bladed staff.

‘Garnet’ finally spoke again. “Pearl, you can go.”

“Oh thank the stars. It was lovely collaborating with you all in behalf of My Um Greg Universe,” she called behind her, already leaping towards the warehouse. ‘Garnet’ said something to the Amethyst (“I liked her better when she was trying to murder Sapphire.”), then flashed with white light and formed the most massive, monstrous fusion Pearl had ever seen. She ran faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My biggest liberty here: letting muscle memory be a thing. I’m sticking with it because it makes the rest of the story more fun, and I don’t think it’s specifically refuted in canon, and it’s vaguely supported by the idea that you can “put the pieces back together” and how it worked for Amethyst.
> 
> Anyway, let me know how that chapter felt. I want to get better at writing action... but I had fun regardless. :)


	3. That Awkward Moment When Your Kid’s Mom’s Ex Cleans the House

This Pearl felt weird. Helpful, sure, that was normal enough. Smart. Always singing and dancing and cleaning stuff, all normal. The pro-homeworld ideals were kinda creepy, coming from Rose's rebel second-in-command, and I was learning more than I'd wanted to about how messed up that whole system used to be, but that wasn't the weirdest part.

It was her face.

"Pearl, uh, how about you go… do your… swords?" She liked swords. Swords would be good. Good plan, Greg.

And yeesh, there was that face. Somewhere between adoring and worshipful, juuuust this side of "doll in a horror movie." I'd take Condescending Smirk Pearl any day.

"While I can acquire any skills you deem valuable, perhaps a quartz would be better suited for combat. Would you like me to contact nearby kindergarten developers for available units?"

I rubbed my head. This was just too much, especially after the whole thing last night with the gig turned charity show for evacuees, and me merging with my son into a hotter, four-armed version of myself, and the world almost getting destroyed again by a pink rock-lady. When had my life become this bizarre? 

Probably when I fell in love with an alien.

Well, nothing I could do right now. Nobody needed an old, fat guy messing things up.

"No thanks, Pearl. I think I'll just… take a nap."

She froze, eyes suddenly scrolling lines of foreign words. Her eyes faded to blue again, clearly confused. I got ready for a deep dive into why humans do what we do, but she just curtsied. I felt like I should do something, so I did kind of a karate-dojo bow and stumbled into the van.

The blankets cushioned my faceplant. It was one thing to pay the guys at that hotel to treat us like celebrities. This was different and not cool. I turned in bed to look out the window, and there she was, peeking in, a worried wrinkle between her invisible eyebrows. Yikes. I turned the other way instead.

And there she still was, three hours later when I pried my eyelids open. She disappeared for a second, then the back doors swung out. 

"My Universe! During the course of your nap, several of your colleagues left messages with me to be viewed upon your awakening. Should I play them now?"

I yawned and stretched. "Yeah, sure."

Pearl's gem glowed, and a blue projection popped onto the asphalt.

"Hey Dad, it's me!" My hologram son waved. "Just told Pearl what a nap was. She's still going to watch you the whole time to make sure you're not going to get ambushed or revert to larva stage or something? I guess that's what that was all those years. Anyway, wanna come have dinner at the temple tonight? It's Garnet's manicotti."

Hologram Garnet appeared in Hologram Son's place. "Greg. There will be food. And bring Pearl." She leaned closer. "Pearl, even after last night… This is not the future I was hoping for. Nice that the planet survived, though."

And then of course Hologram Amethyst. "Yo, Steven's dad, this is suuuuper weird, dude. Last time I left a message on Pearl, she gave me that 'I'm so disappointed in your immaturity' look, and that was cool and all because it was a video of me licking my elbow for thirty seconds, but this time she was like, 'despite your involvement in negating the threat last night, a stunted Amethyst is hardly an appropriate associate for My Um Greg Universe. However, I will relay your message.' We gotta fix her, man."

Pearl's gem turned off and she stood up straight. 

Oh boy.

I ran a hand over my bald spot. "Pearl, you can't just tell people they're not worthy to be my friends." 

She tensed up and bowed her head, pink hair sticking up like a duck tail.

"I don't care what they look like or whether they're appropriate on Homeworld. My friends are my friends because we care about each other, and we try to help each other out. Garnet and Amethyst may seem wrong to you, but they're still good people. Please try to give 'em some respect, okay?"

“Yes, My Um Greg Universe.” Pearl dropped into a curtsy for a good five seconds, then stood, skinny legs crossed and hands behind her back. She didn't look up.

Gosh this was awkward.

But I’d had plenty of dad practice, and this was probably close enough.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Look at me, Pearl."

Her eyes snapped up to mine.

"Now you know better, so now you can do better, right? No use stressing about it. Just give them a good apology and try to get along."

"Of course, My Um Greg Universe."

Good enough, I guess. "Let's go to the temple. I think I have a bag of chips we can bring."

She sprang into action, opening the driver's side to brush the lint off the seat, then stood at attention, hands crossed in front. I climbed in through the back and buckled up.

"You got shotgun," I told her. "Uh, this seat by me."

She tightened her grip on her own hands. "Pearls are to stand behind their masters during all modes of transport, unless piloting."

"Is there even room to stand back there? You're pretty tall."

She just slipped into the van, closed the back door behind her, and awkwardly folded so her neck was sideways, head smushed against the roof, knees half bent. "Do you require navigation or piloting services?"

"No, thanks. I know where my son lives, haha."

She smiled and gave a totally insincere laugh. I sighed and drove us to the beach.

As soon as I turned off the van, Pearl leaped out the back and opened my door, one white hand out towards me. I grabbed it, just to be polite. Just like normal Pearl's, it was cold, bony, and too smooth to be human. Weird, but comfortably weird. Old weird, not new weird.

She pulled the bag of chips out of her head, bowed, and followed me up the stairs. At the last second, she slipped in front of me and threw open the door. 

"The most magnanimous Um Greg Universe has arrived."

I shuffled in, scratching my neck. The other Crystal Gems were staring, Amethyst with a plate halfway into her mouth.

"Hey guys. We brought chips?"

Steven popped us a thumbs up. "Thanks, Dad! Hey Pearl, told ya Dad would wake up!"

"Right you were, Steven." She smiled politely at him, but wilted when the others walked over. 

Maybe if she fixed her relationship with them, she'd be that much closer to her real self? Couldn't hurt. 

"Pearl," I whispered. "Wanna say sorry to anyone?"

She lit up and offered a deep bow to the other Gems. And then she started singing.

"Excuse me, my owner's friends,

I have been wronging you.

Pink Diamond, I'm in your hands

Ready to take my due."

"Are you talking about me?" Steven interrupted. She was too caught up in her musical number to reply, and did one of those fancy ballet jumps onto the counter.

"It's clear now, in these odd lands

Concepts I thought I knew

Are not what he understands.

Here's what I see is true:

My Universe can't be wrong."

Garnet snorted. Pearl twirled around her and danced to me.

"He's generosity.

And I, to his valued friends,

Used animosity.

My words, inexcusable,

Need reciprocity."

"Is she making this up on the spot? I thought she was over her rhyming dictionary phase," Amethyst complained, letting Pearl spin her.

"I represent him amiss.

You all have quality.

I wish now to make it right,

Cleanse my atrocity.

So please inform My Um Greg Universe if you desire any reparations of me."

"I do," Garnet said immediately. "Tonight while Greg's asleep. Meet me here."

Pearl looked at me, hands clenched around each other. She seemed a little terrified.

"Well you don't need my permission," I told her. 

She smirked, just the smallest hint of normal Pearl peeking through. 

"You're very funny, my Universe."

Ugh. Steven slapped his cheeks and pulled on his face. Just how I felt.

"No, really, Pearl. I know you think I'm in charge of you, but I'm really not. You're in charge of yourself. Didn't Rose keep telling you that for thousands of years?" Oh geez. Is that what this would take? Thousands of years to turn her back to normal? I didn't have thousands of years!

"It's alright. You can give up for now," Garnet said, frowning. "Greg, I want to borrow Pearl for a while once you're in bed."

"Yeesh, this feels so wrong. Sure, Garnet, Pearl can come over tonight."

"Good."

Pearl curtsied, but she didn’t look at me this time. 

The manicotti was great, my kid turned on some classic tunes, and Garnet started up a rousing game of chutes and ladders. I felt pretty good, as long as I kept my back to Pearl. 

"Aww, you helped a kitten! Now you're winning, Garnet!"

"Yes I am." Garnet scratched Cat Steven's ears. He pushed his head into her hand.

"I meant in the game," Steven said.

"Hmm."

Amethyst flicked the spinner. "Wait, it says I'm doing the dishes?! That's Pearl's thing!" 

We all involuntarily turned to Pearl. She was kneeling on the stairs, scrubbing baseboards.

"Ugh. Guess some things never change," Amethyst muttered. “We even have pictures of her cleaning stuff in the background of Steven’s baby pictures.”

Steven gasped and scrambled over the sofa. “The photo albums! Guys, this’ll definitely make her remember everything.”

“Sure, why not give it a shot?” It might be a disappointment, but at least we could laugh about the time baby Steven tried to feed everyone styrofoam.

“Here, come sit on the couch, Pearl,” I called to her. She nodded a bow and kneeled on the edge. It looked uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to drag her any closer. It already felt like just talking to her was nonconsensual. 

We had a few pics from my old Polaroid at the beginning: me and Rose eating hot dogs, me and Amethyst running from seagulls, me and Garnet attempting yoga—okay, so Rose took most of the pictures, and she was a little single-minded about it. Every third or fourth picture had Pearl in it, though, dancing, or practicing swords, or showing off a new Earth thing, or being mad at me. Pearl leaned in whenever I pointed to one with both of us in it, head tilted like she wasn’t sure what was going on.

We entered the baby Steven years. 

“Awww, look at your little self! What a nugget,” Amethyst squealed. She bopped Steven on the head. “You didn’t have teeth. It was weird.”

“Oh look look, the one with the sheep!”

“Ah. The cardboard box. It lives on in infamy.”

“Remember when Pearl tried to teach him to talk but he only said ngggum and she thought it was like, an African dialect or something and only talked to him in Swahili for the next month? Yeah, that was hilarious.”

“Greg made him a diaper hat and he wouldn’t take it off for a week.”

“He just wanted to be baby Garnet!”

Steven was blushing, but giggled along with everyone else.

I wondered if Pearl saw the pictures with her in the backgrounds. The baby years hadn’t been great for her. She was always over at the van or Vidalia’s, either deep cleaning or making hundreds of little baggies of baby food to freeze, or reading the dictionary to Steven, or just… watching him, for hours, not moving. There weren’t any pictures of her smiling until he was six and she brought him a telescope.

“Oh my gosh! Remember when he was collecting rocks and gave them all names? Francesco Gutierrez Thorvaldsen and Meimei Freda Jemima?”

“And Fred.”

The next era of Steven was when he turned eleven and wanted to live in the beach house to start learning about gem stuff. This part was rough for me, seeing him doing things I wasn’t there for. Get in danger I couldn’t try to protect him from. Laugh at things I couldn’t even understand. 

“My Universe? Can I… help you?” Pearl whispered. 

I blinked and rubbed my face. “Oh. Nah, this part’s actually where it’ll get good. Lots more with you in them.”

And there were. Amethyst had apparently been on a selfie kick, because most of them had half of her face in front, and Steven in the back with Garnet or Pearl. Pearl still didn’t smile in most of them—she gave off more of the “stressed mom” vibe—but there were a few where she was laughing, and one, when it hit the Connie stage, that Steven must have taken, because she actually seemed happy, holding Connie’s elbow in one hand and her spear in the other.

“The glaive,” she said. She started to pull it out of her gem, and everyone looked at her. She froze.

No one breathed. Not that breathing was a big deal for the gems, but I really didn’t want to mess this up if this was the defining moment.

She pushed it back in. “I’m sorry. Please, continue.”

Guess not.

They skimmed the rest. The last couple years were mostly diplomatic vacation selfies, Steven with gems and aliens all over the galaxy. My dad heart was beyond proud. I loved that kid.

But Pearl’s fluffy pink dress was still brushing my arm, and she was still staring at me like I was her god. 

I managed a sorta half-chuckle. “So, what’d you think, Pearl?”

“Your record archives are archaic and transient.”

“Hey!” Amethyst stood up. “What’d you say about our record archives?!”

Pearl hurried on. “But they’re quite lovely! Full of, uh, sentiment. They’re very nice.”

She gracefully moved off the couch and plucked her broom out of her gem again.

Steven slowly put the photo album back on the shelf. "Why didn't that work?"

Garnet slung an arm around him. "It was close. It was a piece. Just like the pieces at the rock concert, and the pieces fighting Spinel, and those rescuing people afterwards with Greg. But Pearls aren't made like me and Amethyst, and definitely not like you, Steven." She gestured at the kitchen. "We're like cake. Mix all the ingredients and put us under intense heat, and we come out ready to go. That's how our gems formed. That's why it only took a few intense experiences for us to turn back into ourselves. But Pearls are different. Here on earth, a pearl is made when a tiny piece of something gets coated in layers and layers of mollusk slime."

Across the room, Pearl shuddered and swept faster.

"Our Pearl is the same. There’s some grain that started all of her, then layers and layers on top of it that made her herself.”

“I can verify that Pearl does have layers. Lots of traumatic layers she made me literally dive through.” My son glared at Pearl, then smiled at her. “But I love her anyway!”

She ducked her head, still sweeping.

The cake thing was all good, and giving me a hankering for delicious carbs, but I was missing the practical end. 

“So lemme get this cake thing straight. Garnet's a… what, a love cake? So Ruby and Sapphire had to protect each other's life, then protect other people they loved as Garnet. So, a couple good life and death scenarios were the oven there, right? And something about truth?"

"I am a love cake." Garnet adjusted her shades.

Steven joined in. "Yeah! And Amethyst's ingredients were the pieces of her personality. Fun, impulsive, ready to try everything, and really wanting to help people be happy. And the oven there was reminding her how she belongs in our family just the way she is--doing something special together, just us.”

Amethyst blushed and poked him. “So what kinda cake are you, Steeeven?”

“I’m a cake of change!”

“See, yours is kind of the one I really don’t get, Stevaroonie.”

His old ukelele was suddenly in his hands. “I made up a song about it!” He yawned. “But the short version is, my ingredients are all the stuff I went through figuring out what I even am, and my oven was almost falling to my death and realizing there’s always hope because I can keep changing for the better.”

We all looked at him for a minute. I guess it's better finding out about Steven's perilous gem activities after the fact, not while they're going on, but it's still nothing a father wants to think about.

“And Pearl,” Garnet said at last. “Is not a dessert at all, sadly. She needs the grain that started her, then to build up the layers.”

“I could just jump in through all Pearls’ pearls again, to see what we need,” Steven said, but his eyebrows had a wrinkle between them. He was definitely hoping someone would say no. Rescue dad comin’ through!

“Nah, no need for that, Schtooball. Besides, they’re probably not even in there where you can find them right now.”

"Well, we have to think of something. She’s creepy like this.” Amethyst grimaced at Pearl, now washing dishes with a vacant smile.

“The starter piece shouldn’t be too hard, right?” Steven asked.

“Totally. Greg. Ask her how she started. At least we can get that out of the way." Amethyst said, resting her boots on the table. 

Well. Yep, sounded straightforward enough. "Pearl, how were you made?"

She looked up at me with her big, sincere eyes. "You entered your name and selected the default customization options, and my programming initiated the execution sequence."

"What about before that?"

"I assume like all Pearls. In the Reef, White Diamond’s Moonstones implant a tiny sphere of some mineral into an artificial mollusk, a metal-enclosed electronic device that develops layers of physical nacre and digital encoding over the course of a few centuries. Once the pearl gem is complete in form and programming, the original mollusk has been reduced to a hologram, which appears and guides the new owner through the introduction and customization process."

"Okay,” I said. I caught most of that, probably. “So you just finished that when Rose...uh...got you? Pink Diamond?"

Pearl's eyebrows pushed together. "I don't know Rose, and quartzes are rarely provided Pearls. Pink Diamond should have been issued a Pearl due to his rank, but it certainly couldn’t have been me."

"So you don’t remember having any other… owners?"

She looked to the side and frowned, but turned her usual smile back on pretty quickly.

"No, my Um Greg Universe, I assure you that you have received a new specimen customized exclusively for you."

The rest of us looked at each other. Or at our reflection in Garnet's sunglasses. Guess she really didn't remember. Not even Rose. Or Pink Diamond, more than what was in her... programming.

“So, I guess that’s not going to help right now,” Steven said. “But maybe we can at least figure out what makes Pearl, Pearl. I mean, you guys didn't relive everything, just the parts with lessons that gave you defining qualities." He leaned forward, about to say more, when Pearl perked up.

She clapped her hands. "Oh, I can give you a list of a Pearl's defining qualities! It's one of the first data sets we acquire." 

Her gem projected a little Pearl bowing to a sparkly blob. "Obedient to one's owner."

The little Pearl bowed to a less sparkly blob. "Obedient to other Gems, relative to hierarchy."

Little Pearl sprouted a thought bubble with the sparkly blob in it. "Thinking always and only of one's owner's needs and wishes."

Amethyst's nose started wrinkling and Steven's eyebrows were slowly inching up his head. Little Pearl mimicked Sparkly Blob doing different arm motions. 

“Representative of one’s owner in every aspect possible.”

Little Pearl stood at attention. “Silent and inconspicuous when idle.”

Little Pearl twirled. “Graceful and talented in entertaining.”

Little Pearl displayed a neat spreadsheet. “Organized, with a flawless memory.”

Little Pearl pressed buttons on a control panel that popped up. “Competent with technology and any other skills or systems desired by one’s owner.”

Little Pearl knelt in front of Sparkly Blob. “Submissive and grateful to one’s owner.”

Real Pearl brushed her hands together, and the hologram fizzled. "Obviously some Pearls fulfill their programming more precisely than others, but there you have it!"

I rubbed my face. "Wow. So… All Pearls are made like that?"

Pearl and Garnet nodded. 

"Like she said, they're not all exactly the same. Our Pearl was uniquely qualified, or she wouldn't have belonged to a Diamond."

Pearl smiled lightly. "I’m not sure to what you’re referring, though I am a special model. However, even standard-grade Pearls strive to meet those requirements. In the event of inadequacy, Pearls are designed to be fragile and manipulable for ease of control and replacement when needed."

Garnet frowned.

"That said," Pearl continued. "Good Pearls develop such owner-specific skills and storage--of both information and items--that most owners prefer applying other discipline when possible, and there are several other fail-safes built into Pearls to ensure obedience." She turned to me. "I hope your questions and concerns have been adequately addressed, my Um Greg Universe. I can show you a more comprehensive user guide if desired: a concise eighty hour course on optimizing use of your new Pearl!"

"Uh, maybe not tonight." I had enough to think about already, not to mention emailing the venue for Sadie and the Suspects’ next gig and running through the accounting after their last show. "I'm actually gonna go to the van, so you and Garnet can do your thing now if you want." I pushed myself off the couch, slowly straightening the old knees with a rain of pops and cracks. Pearl looked concerned.

We all said our good nights, and I shut myself in the van to drown my confusion in paperwork.

————

Steven was quiet for a few seconds after Greg left, but his knee was bouncing. Finally he stood and started pacing. “She has the starter thing. It’s having an owner. It was Mom before, and this time it’s Dad. What she doesn’t have is—”

“A really big girlfriend.”

“A dream.” Garnet tilted her visor to give Amethyst a look. “She only became herself when she believed in her own dream. While Rose was here, everything she did was for Rose. It wasn’t Rose’s fault,” Garnet added, when Steven sighed and zipped his jacket over his stomach. “Rose wanted her to be her own gem. But to overcome millennia of practice and programming, it took something more than faking a goddess’s assassination, or losing her only purpose. She had to replace someone else’s dream with her own, and that was completely unrelated to where your mother was or wasn't, or who owned her or didn't. It began with Rose, and Earth. And it was still in progress when Spinel came. The past isn't what makes our Pearl. It's how she's creating her own future.”

Steven took off his jacket and tucked it under one arm. "So my song with Dad wasn't wrong. It was the right idea. But it was just an event, when Pearl needs a process?"

Garnet nodded.

Slowly, a smile grew on Amethyst’s face. “Oh ho ho, this is gonna be awesome. I actually know what to do!”

Garnet smiled too. “I knew you would.”

Steven looked back and forth between them, eyes narrowed. “I… definitely don’t get it, but okay.”

“No worries, dude. We got this under control.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he also couldn’t stop a massive yawn. “Alright then. I gotta get some sleep. Kissing dirt really takes it out of you.”

A salute from Garnet, a noogie from Amethyst, and a polite “Enjoy the nothingness, my Diamond,” from Pearl, and Steven climbed up to his bed only slightly disturbed.

[(Here’s a link to Pearl’s Sorry Song)](https://soundcloud.com/solaslin-b/pearls-sorry-song)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greg. :) He’s grown on me. Almost all the characters in SU have flaws or make consequential mistakes, and Greg’s among them, but he’s a good person at heart, trying to be a good dad and still be himself. I like hanging out with him in my brain.
> 
> Tbh, I’m a little disappointed in how much exposition/explanation there is in this chapter, but I think it’s necessary? Could I have been better at feeding it into action throughout the story instead of these chunks of dialogue here? Probably. Lessons for next time.
> 
> As for the art here: the first pic is the first or second thing I drew for this whole project, probably back in February? And the second pic I drew today. Progress continues!
> 
> I made Pearl’s Sorry Song in FL Studio Mobile, and I’m really, really new to composing music, even little things like this, so if you have feedback for me or resources to learn how to do that better, I’m listening! 
> 
> Hope you have a lovely day/night, my friend. :)


	4. Pearl and the Pearls: We’re Gonna Make You Smile

The Amethyst pulled a yo-yo out from under a couch cushions. String in one hand and phone in the other, she somehow contrived to "walk the dog" and text.

"Kay, they'll be ready for us. When are we leaving, Garnet?"

"Now. Pearl, follow me, please."

‘Garnet’ strode to the warp and folded her arms. 

"Yes, of course… Garnet." 

The Amethyst swung an arm around Pearl, who stiffened but kept walking with her. The three stood close on the warp. Beams of light shot up around them. In a split second--long enough for Pearl to compute, but only barely--they were watching the lightstream fade into the darkness of Little Homeworld. 

There was no need for the village to slow down at night, but this time, almost every gem was in Beach City, rebuilding what they could while the humans slept in the gems’ homes. The Amethyst hopped down the steps of the warp and jogged backwards. “Come on! They’re waiting!”

‘Garnet’ nodded to Pearl and followed the Amethyst through the debris of the previous day’s catastrophe with the circular saw. Little Homeworld hadn’t seen any of the injector’s destruction, but it was now only 70.8% complete, and the Peridot’s dumpster was duct taped shut. Pearl sneaked glances at the construction as they passed frames and air-forms for the few buildings still in early stages. It was clear that the dome-shaped forms would optimize resistance to outside forces, and she wondered if Um Greg would ever take an interest in architecture. It would be a fascinating subject to study. If he thought it necessary.

The Amethyst took them just outside the community, near a little grove. She led them through the trees into a clearing lined with stumps. Perched like birds on a power line, the three Diamonds’ Pearls sat on a poorly-built platform in the middle.

They all looked extremely uncomfortable.

The Amethyst plopped down on a stump. “These guys used to be literally the same way you are now, Pearl. I’ve been hanging out with them a lot to give ‘em the full Earth experience, and they said they’re gonna help you become your normal self again. Right, guys?” 

“Of course! It’ll be wonderful!” Pink Pearl clapped her hands and hopped off the platform. Yellow and Blue didn’t move.

Yellow’s lip curled as she looked over Pearl. “She looks like she did eight thousand years ago.”

“So do we.” Blue picked at her skirt. “But it is… a strange feeling, seeing the past."

The Amethyst chewed her lip and glanced at ‘Garnet’ leaning against a tree.

"What was she like back then? I mean, when I met her, she was super neurotic and annoying and had a crush on her boss. She got a lot cooler the last couple years."

Yellow snorted, but narrowed her eyes at Pearl and answered the question.

"Honestly, she was… Similar. White Diamond designed all of us to be perfect for our intended owners.”

“And ours were to be Diamonds. In the Reef, White had us configured specially, shaped over centuries in saltwater.”

“I was always meant to be Yellow Diamond’s. Blue, Pink—you’ll note the slight pigmentation of our gems, their placement and our innate personalities—everything was coordinated so we would reflect and serve them perfectly.”

Amethyst leaned forward. “So how come Pearl is like, all the colors? And what’s up with the forehead?”

Blue squirmed, and Yellow flicked a glance at Pink.

“I’ll answer part of that, but you’ll need some background. White Diamond never wanted a Pearl of her own. Even during Era Two, she only kept one around as an example.”

Pink diligently looked up at the sky.

“A reminder,” Blue said. “But she decided that Pink Diamond did need a replacement. Diamond-quality Pearls take such a lot of time and strictly programmed specifications, though, that making a new one from scratch would have left Pink Diamond alone for too long, White thought. I… All of this is only what I’ve overheard. White talked to Blue Diamond about Pearl production sometimes. White Diamond has always overseen the production of Pearls, but in the beginning, she needed a supervisor who would manage the Reef and report to her. Another Pearl, who could create and train the rest, regardless of which gem, with which Diamond allegiance, would receive them. A Pearl with White Diamond’s sensibilities, but an innate link to all four of them.”

Yellow raised an eyebrow. “Blue, you think Rainbow was the Reef Pearl?”

“The Reef Pearl?” Pink laughed. “That’s a silly legend. Some of the old Freshwater Pearls have memory errors of a Pearl who ran the Reef, and apparently a few gems saw her when they went in for repairs. I was there dozens of times, though, and I never saw anyone who looked like Rainbow.”

“Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amethyst said.

Pearl was also confused. She had files on the Reef, but nothing about the legend they were talking about.

Yellow took over the explanation. “The Reef is where Pearls are made. All of us. And repaired, updated, accessorized.”

“Lately, there’s been an artificial intelligence running the processes and sending reports to White Diamond, but some say there used to be a Pearl who did all that and supervised the Moonstones in behalf of White.”

“Well, I’ve never met one of the original Moonstones, and I still think it’s all just a story.” Pink shrugged. “But it is exciting to think we might have been made by one of our own.”

Everyone stared at Pearl’s gem. She looked at the ground.

“Anyway,” Yellow said, crossing her legs the other direction. “We don’t remember anything before we come out of the shell for our owners, and it’s useless conjecturing. Whatever Rainbow may have been before, White Diamond chose and reset her for Pink Diamond.

“She was exactly what White wanted: flawlessly obedient, exceptionally organized, intelligent enough to essentially run Pink Diamond's colonies."

Pearl liked this version of her previous self.

"White Diamond did love Pink Diamond, in her way, but she didn't trust her competence," Blue said.

Pink Pearl smiled. "I didn't know that much about your Pearl before she took my place, but I did know Pink. She was wonderful."

The other two traded flat-lipped looks. 

"For some reason," Yellow said, rolling her eyes. "Both of Pink Diamond's Pearls fell in love with her instantly."

“No kidding,” the Amethyst muttered.

"Our own Diamonds enforced our obedience through manipulating our emotions, and Pink Diamond was no different."

Pink pulled her fists to her chest. “That’s not--”

"But instead of inspiring fear, like Yellow Diamond, or despair, like Blue Diamond," Yellow interrupted.

Blue finished for her. "Pink Diamond's will was, consciously or not, to be loved."

Pink’s mouth hung open. 

"So Pink here as well as your Rainbow both genuinely adored their Diamond, unlike Blue and I."

Pink’s eye welled up with tears as she looked back and forth from the Amethyst to the other Pearls. “She was worth it. Pink loved Yellow and Blue too, even with how they could be. She loved everyone!” 

“Ehhh…” the Amethyst wiggled her hand back and forth. “Give or take.”

With just the tips of her fingers, Blue touched Pink’s shoulder. "You asked about Rainbow, not all of this. There is more, though not much, we can say. None of us was brave, and even in private, it isn't safe to say or do anything.”

“I didn’t even know Blue liked art until Just Steven arrived, and Pink Diamond kept her Pearls closer than our Diamonds did. We didn’t have much time together. Really, the only thing that made her any different from us was her ideas--you might call it imagination.”

“We mentioned that White Diamond wanted her intelligent.”

“Pink Diamond would never have been able to negotiate the others for a colony without Rainbow literally writing a script for her. She also figured out a way for us to share music and choreography with each other, so we’d be prepared when our Diamonds wanted us to perform together.”

“Pearls come with a set of performance pieces, but Rainbow sometimes invented her own.” Blue shone a projected square out of her gem. In glowing monochrome cerulean, the three Pearls spun and leaped and sang in complex harmony.

“Our Diamonds loved the novelty, but she stopped sending them after White Diamond found out she’d been doing it without orders.”

“She told me White Diamond said she’d be replaced if she kept imagining things. Creativity and fun were Spinel’s job, and hers was to tend Pink Diamond’s other needs.”

Yellow shrugged. “That’s really all we have to tell you. We were fairly stagnant for about ten thousand years. We didn’t have much to us beyond being extensions of our owners, though the reason for that changed.”

“Simply following programming at first, but over time, so many new variables are introduced that the code doesn’t have set reactions.”

“So you do whatever will probably keep you in your owner’s good graces and, therefore, alive.”

“This odd setting on Earth, and Greg being himself, might break her programming more quickly, but it also might make her more reliant on Greg, since that’s our core directive,” Blue said. “If that’s the case, we may not be able to help her."

"But we'll try anyway," Yellow declared. She stood and brushed her palms together. "Earth seems to change the unchangeable.”

  
  


The two Crystal Gems left shortly after that. 

“You can return her to Greg when you’re done tonight.” ‘Garnet’ saluted the Pearls on her way out of the trees. “Her next activity will be with humans, and they’re useless until morning.”

Blue nodded, and peeked from under her hair at Pearl, who still held the rigid posture of a Pearl at rest in a Diamond’s court. Apparently, Yellow noticed the same thing, because she sighed and yanked Pearl’s hands out of their grasp on each other. When Pearl stumbled, slightly shocked, Yellow nodded in approval.

“Very good. No need to stand in position here.”

“Well, yes, there are only Pearls here, but--”

Yellow glared at her and grabbed one of her wrists. “Wrong. It doesn’t matter who’s around. You don’t have to be ‘proper’ for anyone.” She pulled her down a narrow trail over stomped-down dirt and trampled twigs. Blue and Pink followed quietly. 

Pearl watched Yellow Diamond’s Pearl. She strode ahead like she knew exactly what she was doing even though, it seemed, she no longer had an owner. The ruffles at her shoulders puffed up with every step. How did she know what to do? The smell of saltwater and poison breathed on them with the breeze’s ebb and flow. What was she living for, if not for her master? A branch snapped under foot, and something skittered through the leaves above her head. She had to have a purpose, didn’t she? 

They stopped in a larger clearing, deep in the forest. Tall grass rustled, and a small herd of deer stared at the gems before leaping into the darkness. 

“Now, everyone lie down and shut up,” Yellow commanded. Pink bounced to her knees and flopped onto her back immediately. 

“Why?” Pearl stood stiffly at the edge of the trees.

Blue folded herself to the ground, pushing her hair to the side to see the stars. "You need to be quiet with yourself sometimes. It helps you understand what matters."

"I already know what matters. Who matters. I'm actually quite confused about how all of you have forgotten." She glanced at Pink. "Or most of you, I suppose."

Yellow sighed and lie flat in the grass, only her nose sticking above the wispy tips. "They do matter. They matter as much as we do.”

“But there are things that matter more than just them,” Blue whispered. “And more than just ourselves. Freedom and joy and creation and love and life, and giving everything that can think the chance to experience those things.” 

“You'll figure it out when you start really living." Yellow sat up and glared at Pearl. "So shut up and lie down!"

This time, Pearl obeyed, twisting herself onto her side so she could see the sky without being flat on her back.

The four of them stayed motionless while the moon slid across the darkness. Over the hills, the sea breathed, and under the stars, the trees shivered. Pearl watched a firefly float through their meadow, and then a handful more follow. Half of her mind hadn't quit hyperventilating about Um Greg, but the other half had taken to spouting metaphorical epiphanies: the glowing insects, as bright as the stars to her perception at this distance, but orders of magnitude less luminous in reality--what was proximity causing her to misinterpret? Could she be so emotionally close to something that she had an unrealistic perspective? Um Greg rose to the surface of her thoughts, but she shoved that down deep. Obviously that wasn't the lesson nature was teaching, because he was exactly as flawless and magnificent as she thought.

She closed her eyes. The occasional insect crawled over her skin, tiny prickles against her soft, new form. She'd heard humans grumbling about mosquitoes at the concert, but they seemed to ignore gem "blood." It was only light carrying energy around the material form, she supposed. An owl hooted, a snake slithered past her shoulder, something small was digging in the dirt nearby, the deer were apparently back and chewing grass, a bat fluttered overhead… how did Earth function with so much chaos? Earth colony aside, the gem empire was a perfect system, carefully designed and implemented. These organisms, though, were simply doing whatever they wanted. And yet, Earth thrived and surpassed even Homeworld in variety and quantity of life and vibrance. The smells of life, death, and change permeated everything. Nothing stagnated. Nothing lasted, either. 

Was she going to change the way everything else on the planet did? Yellow seemed to think so. Pearl tensed at the thought. She was practically perfect. Her gem was nearly ideal, a particularly large specimen with flawless symmetry and luster, and even uniquely valuable rainbow orient. She was slightly self-conscious that it wasn’t a perfect sphere, but her adherence to programming was, so far, near faultless. If Earth changed her, that could only make her less perfect.

She opened her eyes, searching in the dark for some example of something that had stayed the same. But the clouds shifted from amorphous shape to amorphous shape, the dirt beneath her was, according to her information, a composite of chemicals, decayed organic matter, and crushed minerals, all of which later became part of something else—even the magnetic field of the planet itself wasn’t completely stable. 

But it was fine. She was not from here, and these things and the beings who lived here lacked her discipline. She was meant to be the perfect Pearl for Um Greg Universe, and nothing would stop her.

Except… there was a strange little itch somewhere that imagined more. Imagined having her own purpose outside of him, seeing worlds, learning about things Greg didn’t even know existed, showing him what the universe had to offer. Showing more people than just him what the universe had to offer. It was heretical and morally wrong to think about such things, though, and this was just proof that if she didn’t control herself, Earth could in fact change her, too.

Diligently avoiding any more thought of change, Pearl spent the last hours focused on trying to “be in the moment,” as Blue had muttered when Pink tried to start a conversation. At last, the edges of the sky grew gray, and the animals gradually swapped places with different animals. Yellow stood, stretching backwards until her hair brushed the ground behind her.

“That’s enough,” she announced. “Naturally, you’re all welcome to do that alone whenever you please. Garnet calls it meditation. I don’t recommend trying it with humans, though. They’re terrible at staying still.” She smirked at the other Pearls. “Though perhaps with a few thousand years of practice, they would improve.”

“We do have responsibilities today,” Blue said. “One of Yellow Diamond’s former colonies asked for footage of their first Freedom Anniversary.”

“I’ll be providing commentary on camera for this one, when I’m not at the broadcasting controls.” Yellow tugged at her shoulder ruffles. “I never thought we would get to choose what appeared on the Diamond media channels, but it feels natural. Pearls are still better than any other gems at recording events, and the two of us are better qualified than anyone to cover current happenings.”

“And White Diamond’s face when Just Steven offered us the role—” Blue grinned, and Pink giggled.

This was all very nice, surely, for her mutinous sisters, but Pearl had real responsibility. “I need to return to Um Greg. He ‘wakes up’ in four hours.”

“Oh yes! You’ll want to be there for that! Pink didn’t sleep, of course, but she always liked showing me some silly tricks after a long meeting. I’m sure you’ll enjoy whatever Um Greg Universe likes to do!” Pink grinned at her. Pearl did not reciprocate.

“‘Enjoyment’ is not a requirement under Um Greg, unlike Pink Diamond. But regardless, I have work to do. I… get the sense he is unsatisfied with me.”

Yellow nodded, frowning. “Well. You know what to do. Busy yourself taking care of your duties until he gives precise directions or correction. Anticipate his desires, as much as possible.”

“And control your behavior to suit his emotions. The database doesn’t address that very well,” Blue added. They all headed towards Little Homeworld, feet silent over twigs and leaves. 

“And if he ever starts to lose control, just…” Pink blushed and breathed out a laugh. “Stay out of his way.”

As they passed into the village, Yellow abruptly stopped and slapped her own face. 

“What are we saying? That’s how it was before. We’re free, experiencing ‘fun,’ and you,” she declared, jabbing a finger at Pearl. “Would be, too, if you weren’t letting the program dictate everything.” 

Pearl held herself straighter. She was not going to be dragged into Earth’s poisonous ideas of change. Whatever it took, she would fight it. "You don't understand. You obviously have never felt what it's like to be truly dedicated to a superior being."

Yellow whipped around and grabbed her, completely ignoring the team of Chalcedonies peeking up from their excavating project.

"We all belonged to Diamonds! If there are 'superior beings,' it's them. If anyone understands, it’s us.”

Pearl squinted at her, lips thinned in obvious doubt.

Yellow stomped a foot. “For a thousand years before you appeared, and millennia after you left, we had no other life besides dedication, because otherwise we would have been crushed into dust! I know exactly how it feels, and exactly how it feels to try to get over that and become your own self, and that's why I'm  _ trying _ to help you, so just--change already!"

The Chalcedonies whispered among themselves. 

Blue touched Yellow's arm. "Yellow is extremely dedicated to everything she does. You are wrong that we don't understand. But when Yellow decided to become independent, she devoted herself to it with as much force as she had devoted herself to her Diamond. Mine was a more gradual shift, but you shouldn't suppose we've never felt it. We're still defined by our owners, even now. We still… Love them, to use a human term."

“Clearly you don’t, or you would still be serving them properly. It appears to me that you failed as Pearls, and now you’re failing at trying to be human.”

“We’re trying to be ourselves! We’re doing something! We’re not just pretending that pleasing someone else is good enough!”

“Or all this attempted ‘changing’ is evidence that you’ve given up, because you couldn’t please them.”

“FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS, I WAS PERFECT!”

“Yellow—”

“And now you’ve let Earth dirty you? I refuse to repeat your mistakes.”

“Rainbow, please—”

“You were the one who taught me any of this! I was as content as you are to be the perfect Pearl for my Diamond, until you came and--and now you’re trying to force me to feel bad about my progress?!”

“Please, stop fighting,” Blue whispered. Pink bit her lip and covered her gem.

“I’m explaining why you shouldn’t keep trying to make me fail, like you have.”

“It’s not failing! You’re failing, for letting that Spinel turn you back into this and not even trying to fight it!”

“‘This’ is exactly what I want to be! I am a flawless example of a high-grade Pearl!”

“Your gem’s an oval.”

Petty. So be it.

“And you’re yellow, even though you say you’re independent now, aren’t you?”

“I can’t do anything about that! She made me like this!”

“Yes, exactly. And you’re trying to deceive yourself into thinking you’re your own gem. You know you can’t be anything except Yellow Diamond’s, or you would have at least changed your form by now. You’re convincing yourself that your galactic event recordings are your choice, your little trips to Earth and the other colonies, but they’re nothing new. They’re exactly what you’ve always done.”

“The motivation is completely different! We’re doing these things because we want to, not because we’re forced to.”

“And I want to serve my Universe, not live a wild, pointless existence.”

“Doing what makes you happy is not pointless!”

“Isn’t it, though? It benefits only yourself, at the expense of others you could instead be spending your time and energy on.”

Blue spoke. “Good gems find joy in others’ joy, inspiration in others’ creation, and peace in others’ well-being. Your own happiness doesn’t exclude benefits to other life.”

“Lovely sentiments, but merely rationalizing selfishness. You must feel ashamed, don’t you? But you just keep trying to justify yourselves to avoid feeling guilt.”

“I--Ugh! Why are you arguing with us at all? Why not just agree with us, then traipse off to privately do whatever you want, like you’ve always done?”

Why was she? She should just let them blaspheme among themselves and keep herself aloof. But… some of what they were saying made too much sense, honestly. Was too enticing. And the only way to fight it was to fight them. Good thing she remembered some of the footage of the Diamonds. It might just help her win. 

She smirked at Yellow. “Oh, are you feeling emotional? It is just like Yellow Diamond’s Pearl to let anger get the best of her.”

“I am perfectly calm!”

“And since of course you’re all free now, independent gems, that’s why all of you are so unlike your owners, isn’t it?” Sarcasm felt powerful. “Blue, crying over there and mumbling things, Pink, trying to cheer everyone up with ill-timed fake smiles--stars, her owner is gone forever and she’s still like this--and you, naturally, lording your forceful personality over inferior gems with a mistaken sense that you’re doing something right.”

Blue turned away to wipe a tear from her cheek, trying to hide it from Yellow. But Yellow saw.

“Blue! She’s been trying so hard, and now you’ve--we’ve--”

Hands clasped over her chest, Pink squeaked out something meant to deescalate the argument: “Um, friends, let’s just… Stay calm?” It failed miserably.

“It’s fine, Yellow, I just--” Blue started.

But, proving Pearl right at least in part, Yellow had not spent two full gem eras next to her Diamond without absorbing a few of her habits. Like unfettered aggression. With the grace of dance and the speed of a martial artist, she pulled a pair of karambit out of her gem, swung one leg around Pearl’s ankle, and wedged her arms behind her, one curved blade scraping from wrist to shoulder. No blood welled up—it wasn’t liquid to begin with—but the wound was red and rough against the rest of her skin, the barely visible edge of infrared light that leaked when the exterior shell of hard light broke. The energy loss came with stinging pain. Pearl’s smug expression quickly hardened. She tucked her head in and jammed one hip against Yellow, forcing her to readjust to catch her balance. In the instant it took for Yellow to shift her foot, Pearl had hooked her leg and almost swept her down, but Yellow snagged her shoulder with a karambit and stumbled to the side. Pearl took full advantage of the slip, shoving her arms in towards Yellow’s elbow then spreading them to keep the blade at a distance. Twisting her wrist around Yellow’s thin forearm, she pulled her hand down and ducked under and behind. Faster than sight, she tore the knife away and flipped the handle’s ring onto her finger. But before she could slice it towards any vitals, the edge of Yellow’s other blade cut into her side and towards her spine, dangerously near a vestigial organ. If she pushed much further, it would be a fatal wound for an organic—and therefore, one that would instantly dissolve a gem’s form. Pearl dropped her weapon.

Yellow slowly moved away, trembling. “Maybe you shouldn’t have taught me things you didn’t want used on you.” The figurative undertones were quite clear, but Pearl refused to respond. She stared at the harsh graze on her arm, the ripped fabric at her waist, the cuts she hadn’t noticed at the time that now stood out like fire, in both appearance and sensation. What really concerned her was how she had instantly reacted, as if her body knew exactly what to do, just like with the Spinel. It had been her mind slowing her down. And now she wasn’t sure if she was disappointed in herself for losing a fight, or horrified that she, a new Pearl, apparently had very violent muscle memory. Both felt terribly wrong.

Pink was holding Blue’s hand while Blue lectured Yellow, and Yellow frowned contritely at the ground. The Chalcedonies were murmuring to each other with rising pitch, gesturing at the Pearls. Pearl decided she’d had enough.

She brushed off her skirt and ran to the warp, hoping she’d be able to concentrate long enough to mend her form before Um Greg saw her.

“Rainbow, wait,” Blue called.

She shook her head and turned the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been casually taking Kung Fu classes, so I know just enough to thoroughly embarrass myself. :) It’s really cool, though. It’s a lot like dancing, with constant improvisation, and even being smaller and weaker than the others, I felt genuinely powerful and capable once I’d picked up a few techniques. (I tested it on my husband and effectively ‘won’ the ‘fight.’ Just wing chun type stuff though, not knives. Should clarify.) Anyway, that’s why that made it into this chapter. 
> 
> Hope you’re doing well and taking good care of yourself!


	5. Magic Spit

Greg was snoring in his van when Pearl arrived on the beach. She sagged against the door, grateful at least for enough time to fix herself. Breathing wasn’t strictly necessary, but it was refreshing, so she let herself fill her lungs in time with the surf. In and out. Imperfectly timed, like everything here, but… nice. Centering, as water always was. She peeked in the van window. Tangled in a ratty blanket—that would be next on her mending list, once he was awake—he lay with one arm over his face and drool leaking into his stubble. Still plenty of time, then. She glanced up and down the beach once more, then closed her eyes and stepped into the foamy seawater. 

It was, outside of Um Greg, the one appealing thing about Earth. The Spinel’s mess had given it a mildly acidic bite, but the water still instantly settled her mind and soothed her body. She sighed. Things had gone poorly with the Pearls, which would upset the Amethyst, which would upset her Universe, but if she raised her caliber of usefulness and prettiness, he might forgive her. She had to pray that would work, because any other option was impossible to accept. 

She opened her eyes and shrieked, leaping backwards onto the beach and crashing into Um Greg’s van.

“Whoa, hey, it’s just me, Pearl!” Pink Diamond floated over to her, hands up. “Just wondered what you were doing in the ocean. You doing oka—hoooooly cookie cats, what happened to your arm?! And I mean I guess the rest of you too, but wow, something took half your skin off! I didn’t even know that could happen to gems!”

Pearl blushed and hid her arm behind her back. “Nothing happened. I was just about to fix it myself. Have a pleasant morning, my Diamond, and I do hope your saliva distribution is productive.”

“You sound less perky than yesterday,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “It’ll take me like two seconds to heal you, okay?” He licked his hand and held it up to her.

For some reason, she felt guilty. Unworthy of his compassion. As if the fight had been her fault and she deserved to take care of her own errors. Maybe it was, and maybe she did, and maybe Yellow wasn’t wrong. Maybe she needed to apologize, for the second day in a row. She didn’t remember it being this hard to be a new Pearl last time, but then, she didn’t remember much. 

She snapped out of her own thoughts when his wet palm approached her gem. “No no, I’ll be fine. You, ah, if you happen to see Yellow Pearl before she leaves for the Pearls’ Diamond Channel Broadcast, she might possibly have some small injuries to tend.”

“Did you get in a fight with Yellow?! What happened?”

She was regretting everything and wanted to go clean something. “Nothing happened. She won. I’m sure you have many more important things to attend to, my Diamond.”

“Not really! This is pretty important, if you guys hurt each other like that!”

“Everything was my fault. She’s not seriously wounded, but I just thought—if you, by chance, ran across her—it would ease my conscience slightly to know she didn’t have to expend extra energy touching up her form.”

He stared, the spit drying on his hand. “I think… I need to know what the fight was about, first. From you.”

Pearl started to sweat. An interrogation from a Diamond was no trivial matter. She wished she could take back her one offhand, guilt-induced mention of Yellow. But she wasn’t about to disobey Pink Diamond.

“As I said, it was my fault. She had been trying to help me transition to independence from servitude, but I… can’t. I suppose I’m afraid I’ll change regardless of my intent, however, and as she kept talking, I felt it necessary to use some verbal cruelty to prevent her efforts at reform from adhering. Blue cried, and Yellow attacked with some weapons in her storage. And then I—“ She wasn’t going to expound on her instant fighting ability unless directly questioned. “I lost.”

“Sounds like you’re scared of losing who you are.” Pink Diamond’s face softened into a deep frown, and he sighed. “You should talk to her. Later. After you’re both calm and healed up.”

“Yes, my Diamond.”

“That wasn’t supposed to be an order! I just—forget it.”

“Yes, my Diamond.”

He groaned, and Um Greg opened the back doors of the van with surprising coordination for the hour of the morning. He’d been awake for at least a little while, then.

"Morning, kiddo and Pearl."

"Hey Dad. You're up early."

Um Greg laughed. "Something crashed into the van a couple minutes ago, and then I heard two of my favorite people talking and thought, hey, why not make it an early morning, am I right?" His grin faded. "Are you both doing okay?"

Pink Diamond wiped his hand on his pants. "Yeah, I was just going to get started on the center of town. You should talk to Pearl about her fight with Yellow after I heal her up."

Um Greg frowned at Pearl. She provided a blank smile, internally hyperventilating.

"We’ll talk. But first, did you already have breakfast, sport?"

"Well I mean, a protein shake..."

Um Greg shook his head vehemently and threw his hands in the air. “What have they done with my son?! I may have eaten out of trash cans on the boardwalk, and I may occasionally consider an entire can of whipped cream a balanced lunch, but I did not raise my child to think a protein shake is real food. To the kitchen!”

Pearl kept her arms out of sight, but stepped forward with a bounce. "What breakfast do you desire, my Um Greg Universe?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you actually know how to make food, Pearl?" 

She proudly slipped a cookbook out of her gem and offered it to him. “I read this while I was in the kitchen yesterday. I believe my knowledge and skills are adequate to fulfill your sustenance needs.”

He slowly walked with Steven up the stairs to the house, thumbing through grease-stained pages. “Huh. I’m up for waffles if you are, Schtooball, but I’ll do the cooking today. Don’t think I missed how a slice of your arm’s gone, Pearl. You guys take care of that, I’ll take care of the ‘just adding water.’”

It was starting to bother her, actually, having to concentrate on replenishing all the energy exiting as infrared radiation (plus and minus a few hundred nanometers of wavelength) from the cuts, and it bothered her more, being imperfect under the attention of her Universe and his Diamond. Son. And it would take her hours to fix her form herself. “Very well. At your leisure, my Diamond.”

The screen door stuttered as it banged shut behind Um Greg. Dawn was at its peak, pink and orange flooding the sky. The ocean was pink, too, but whether reflecting the sunrise or shining with death serum, Pearl couldn’t tell. She closed her eyes and waited, not eager to see slimy, half-human fluid contact any part of her.

“Okay, Pearl, I’m just going to kiss your gem. That should take care of everything.”

He did, and she shuddered at the disgusting sensation of slippery goo against her gem. However, it also sent a wash of relief prickling over her skin, as light mended itself and reformed as particulate matter. She opened her eyes to see Pink Diamond biting his lip, fists close to his chest in anticipation.

She performed her most elaborate bow, a sequence of pirouettes and twirling wrist motions. “My humblest gratitude, Pink Diamond Steven.”

He sighed, more disappointed than she expected. “It was a little silly, hoping the princess thing would work. Glad you’re feeling better.” 

The healing didn't take long, and neither did the waffles. Um Greg had three plates out and a platter stacked with food waiting on the counter in minutes.

"Tada! One for you, one for me, and one for Pearl!"

"Uh… Does she eat now?" Pink Diamond poured two cups of milk.

Um Greg shrugged. "She doesn't have to if she doesn't want to." He brought over one more cup. Pearl was already by the sink, scrubbing the bowl he’d used.

“Hey Pearl, come on over!”

She shoved the faucet off and dashed into position behind Um Greg’s chair. He slowly hunched over and peeked at her above his shoulder.

“You can sit in your own spot, you know.”

“If you would prefer it.” She perched on the third chair, hands draped over one knee.

“You can also look at things besides me? How ‘bout them waffles, huh?”

“Magnificent culinary masterpieces, my Universe. Flawless in color and form, wafting divine aroma!”

His son laughed. “They are good, Dad. Thanks for breakfast.”

“Thanks, kiddo. Here, have one, Pearl.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Is it… Do I…” And then she figuratively flipped her pleasant neutrality switch, and smiled. “I will do as my Universe requests.” Her digestive system was prepared, though not constantly operational. She copied the fork routine Um Greg was performing. 

It was awful.

Digestion had translated surprisingly well, from gemkind’s organic predecessors to their modern light-generated forms. Gems were already designed to copy the form and, when desired, function of all normal humanoid organs. The biggest difference in it all was that, apparently unlike Um Greg or Pink Diamond, gems felt every one of their particles. The ones that materialized their clothes, the ones that shaped their hair, their skin, and all the ones inside. And though far more tolerant and resistant to physical effects than humans, Pearls were more sensitive than other, real, gems. 

She shuddered, waffle mud crawling through her. She could still feel it, oozing down her digestive construct and leaving slimy residue. It usually felt clean inside, crystalline structures with just enough flexibility for motion. Now, every sticky crumble was horribly tangible against her particles.

Um Greg glanced at her. “Did you actually eat that? You can have more.”

Pearl was trying to cauterize the texture from her insides using concentrated energy, but when Um Greg made the offer, she paused. She didn’t want to displease him, but… surely there was something else she could do instead. Anything. Literally. Anything. 

He must have seen something in her expression, because he held up a hand and dumped the rest of her waffle onto his plate.

“Whoa, you don’t have to if you don’t want to! Sheesh, I’m gonna have to be careful what I say. Anyway, besides the protein shake horror, part of the reason I wanted to have a together breakfast was to let you know I’m gonna be in Empire City in two weeks. Sadie called me last night and said they want to do a benefit concert to raise money for rebuilding Beach City, so I called in a few favors, and Deb worked her magic and found us a venue we can use for a whole weekend at the end of the month!”

“That’s awesome, Dad! I don’t want to say I’m glad Spinel tried to destroy the Earth, but stuff like this sure brings people together.”

Um Greg shoveled half a waffle into his mouth and nodded. Muffled around the food, he addressed Pearl. “It’s gonna be busy the next couple weeks, but I can handle it myself. I think they need you more on the gem team helping fix up the city.”

Pearl stared at him silently for a moment. She stood up. “If I can automate processes to speed reconstruction and regrowth by six hundred percent, may I accompany you when you leave the city?”

“Uh, I mean, that would be great, but you don’t have to feel pressured to be with me all the time.”

“Oh, I don’t. I recognize that you may wish to send me on errands.”

“Aaaaaanyway,” Pink Diamond interrupted, watching his dad face-palm yet again. “How are you going to speed things up that much, Pearl?”

She lit up, figuratively and literally, as her gem unfolded a massive holographic display board. “Well, my Diamond, the mechanism of your healing powers became clear when you fixed me earlier. It’s obvious that it requires physical, emotional, and gem-intuitive components, and equally obvious that once it leaves your body, your healing fluid continues to function maximally. The quantity of fluid doesn’t matter, nor does its method of application.

“And, as it seems to ‘heal’ light, as was shown in my own form, your power is not limited to cell-based life. Assuming you can mentally grasp the concept of the Earth, or water, as being alive—studying certain other Diamond colony mythologies may help—you should be able to follow this sequence of steps:

“Expel healing fluid into a container of pure water, diluting it. Distribute smaller vials of these labeled solutions to trusted individuals in the community. A simple spray bottle like this—“ She drew one on the display, in impressive realism. “Will allow it to spread by both air and tactile connection. We’ll have to run tests to determine exactly how large an area these diluted solutions can affect, but I estimate that after the creation of the healing solution by Pink Diamond, 85% of the healing can be delegated to volunteers, though it may require multiple applications. The remaining 15%, the most severe damage, may require more specific application by you alone, my Diamond, and of course these estimates don’t account for the damage to human-made constructs, such as houses and vehicles.”

Steven squinted at the display, full of diagrams and numbers. “So you’re saying I can spit in some water and people can just spray that on stuff to heal it?”

“With the proper mental focus, yes.”

Steven slapped his forehead. “Why haven’t I been doing that for the past five years?! That would’ve solved so many problems! I mean, I could pretty much single-handedly cure every disease in the world!”

“The subjects presumably need to be open to gem powers. Earth herself has had millennia of connections to gems, but short-lived natives of any planet tend to be more skeptical. And I believe your power does have range and scope: it may not be able to heal particularly large swatches of area or quantities of organisms, and it may not heal certain conditions or imperfections.”

“This will still be amazing if it works. I guess I’m a little mad none of us thought of this before, though.”

“I’m sure you all had expectations based on past observations. Given that I only have current observations and generic historical context, I’m able to make fresh analyses.”

Her smile was unconscious, for once, as Steven and Greg worked out the details and she cleaned the kitchen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there’s a lot of head canon in here.
> 
> Gem physiology: There are a few times when gems get scraped up in the show, and that’s red, in every case I noticed. Never any gem blood, though. And the inside of their mouths is pinkish, like humans, and they have saliva and tears, but nothing shows up on x-rays. I made Greg explain it once, but took it out of the final version, so here it is in the notes:
> 
> So Pearl says they make their physical forms out of light turned into matter, and they don't have to eat or sleep or blink or breathe, but they end up having all the usual organs so they can do those things anyway if they feel like it, because they're "based on organic life, but less mortal." Apparently after they use up whatever resources they need to form their gem for the first time, they just use light energy to move and talk and stuff. Uh, they also have their own kind of blood that transfers light energy around their body instead of nutrients, so if they get cut, it doesn't really bleed, just shows a red warning mark where light energy (I guess a form that's not visible to humans) is seeping out. And a nervous system that feels pain and temperature and stuff, though they can endure a lot more of that than normal people. Also they have all the usual fluids (made of light, like the rest of them), but once they leave their body, if they're not being sustained by their gem's concentration and energy anymore, and if it's not connected to the gem, it disappears. Unless it was made by emotion, like Rose's tears or the Diamond water. Emotions make everything more powerful and physically “there.”
> 
> How Steven’s Powers Work: It’s pretty clear that all gem abilities are emotion-based, but I thought there were a few other laws of this magic system that clarify why he couldn’t just solve cancer, malaria, and death (or hey, maybe he did, and they just didn’t put it in the show. I’m sticking with my magic laws for now, though). 
> 
> Let me know if you see these things differently! It’s fun to invent the “how” behind the “what” of the show together.
> 
> Have a happy weekend!


	6. Mobilizing

They tested Pearl’s theory with a spray bottle from under the sink. (“Hey Pearl, you remember what you put in here? No? Welp, down the sink!”). It worked precisely as predicted, purifying an area of ocean water about the size of the late “Lil Lappy.” Though it quickly merged with the rest of the water again, they were assured that with enough volunteers, it would work, and Greg drove off to find Yellowtail to head the ocean clean-up team. 

Pearl was supposed to help Steven fill and label empty milk jugs with his healing solution, but Amethyst stomped in before they’d finished the first one.

“Oh my gosh, P, I just found Yellow and—uh, whaaaaat is going on here exactly?”

Steven paused with drool dangling halfway out of his mouth, and Pearl jumped up from her post by the spigot filling the jugs.

“We found a way to significantly accelerate the city’s recovery!” Pearl provided a detailed explanation of the plan, which Steven summarized in a sentence.

“Ohhhhh, you shoulda just said that first. Gimme a job! And I bet Garnet’ll help too, if I can find her.”

“Mobilizing humans and gems and acquiring these,” Pearl said, sliding a bottle out of her gem. “Are our next priorities. Ah—by Pink Diamond’s leave, of course.” She gave him the diamond salute, pressing her lips together. She knew she talked too much. If Steven weren’t such a forgiving gem, he would probably have told Um Greg to quiet her hours ago.

“Sounds good. I’ll round up the locals and catch Garnet up. Meet you here for the spit water in a few hours?”

Pearl managed to restrain herself and let Pink Diamond nod and offer a few last instructions.

They worked quietly and efficiently, and Steven had just deemed it “lunch time” when the humans arrived.

"Steven! I'm so glad you thought of this idea!" Nanefua rushed to him with a bag as big as she was, Rubies in tow. "This will help the town very much!"

"All of us on the boardwalk dumped our cleaning stuff in the ocean, which was illegal," Peedee grumbled. 

"Buuuuut," Ronaldo shouldered them both aside, phone out and apparently recording the event. "An alien in a massive bejeweled injector already exploded an entire spacecraft full of extremely toxic pink fluid into the ocean!"

Kiki put another bottle in Nanefua's bag. "So we figured a little Windex wasn’t going to be the end of the world.”

Steven allowed a pained chuckle. “Yeah… End of the world. Ha. Pearl’s helping fill the bottles, so can you guys start the line over by her? I’m gonna try to make a few more gallons of this stuff.”

Pearl cycled through the line efficiently and perfectly, never wasting a drop. Her Universe had given her a Sharpie before he left, and she was using it to label every container in graceful cursive, as well as in stylized Gem glyphs in case they fell into the hands of a gem without the auto-translate skill. It was running smoothly, with Mayor Nanefua directing traffic and mapping out volunteer routes. And then it was Dewey’s turn.

“Soooo, hey there.” Dewey straightened his Big Donut uniform and gave Pearl his best ex-mayor grin. “You look nice. New, uh, new outfit? Hair? You busy tomorrow night? I mean if the city’s back to normal. It should be, right? Everything will be great! So we could, you know, go somewhere together?”

Pearl poured sixteen fluid ounces of the healing solution into his empty Lysol bottle. “My Um Greg Universe has exclusive rights to my time. While you may request use of his Pearl, he has mentioned that his schedule is full, and I expect to be at his service as soon as I’ve fulfilled his request to tend Beach City’s rebuilding efforts.”

“Wait--Greg Universe? Car wash man? You two are a thing?”

“Certainly not!” Was he implying they’d fused? Humans had no sense of morality. “I am his Pearl.”

“Whoa. Uh, well, I don’t really get what’s going on, and this sounds like the kind of thing that should be a, uh, a more private conversation, but I’ll just take that as a no. For now.”

“Very good. Next, please.”

Next was Onion, who had no bottle. 

“Excuse me, do you need a spraying conta--” 

He climbed onto her knee and pulled her face down until he was staring straight into her gem.

“Um.” She really couldn’t figure out what to say to this one. He slowly pulled something long and scaly out of his pocket. It twisted around his hand. Pearl still had no idea what his intent was. He put the snake back in his pocket and pulled out a pickle. He put it up to her lips. Now she really didn’t understand, but she also had no desire to mash it into goo with her mouth. She shook her head. Somehow that made him smile, and he put it back in his pocket and walked away.

It was well past Steven’s lunch time when the line finally dwindled to an end. He stretched and sighed.

“I really need some food. I’ll make more of the healing stuff tomorrow, if they need it. What parts of the city did you say I’d have to do myself, Pearl?” He headed down to the kitchen, and Pearl followed.

“It depends. I’ll check the progress of your ‘flora’ and ‘fauna’ solutions for actual efficacy. It’s likely that specifically, the impact point will require your individual effort, and perhaps some underwater work.”

Steven nodded and dug through the refrigerator. Bottles clinked, and he hummed and picked a few bags out of a drawer.

Pearl felt anxiety crackling under her skin. She’d been away from Um Greg for hours now, and organics like him needed regular maintenance, and he had no gem guard to protect his fragile human body. “Excuse me, Pink…” She paused when Steven cringed.

“Can you just call me Steven?”

Well, certainly, she could, and it disgusted her to realize that mentally, she had been. “If you wish. It seems disrespectful, though.”

“Steven’s better than Pink Diamond or whatever. Really.”

“Very well, then, Steven. I thought I might ask if you had any further requests of me?”

He chewed a bite of a sandwich. “Ummmm… If I say no, are you gonna go to Dad?”

“After verifying the state of the revitalizing effort, yes.”

“Then I want to come check on it with you, and then I think we need to… Do something else together. Just us. Dad said I could have you as long as I needed, right?” Muttering into his lunch, quietly enough that she almost missed it, he added, “And I think I need to give him a break.”

A break from what? From her? What was she doing wrong? Talking too much? Thinking too much? 

If she felt brave later, she would ask. But meanwhile, Um Greg had lent her to Steven, and Steven was an extremely prominent gem who should not be disobeyed. She smiled and bowed. “Whatever pleases you, my--Steven.”

It wasn't hard to sustain her empty smile as she refilled his milk, folded his napkin after each use, and collected the random items scattered around the room, sorting them inside her gem. The smile was a natural extension of her will to please, though it didn't seem to be working as advertised. Steven kept sneaking glances at her and squirming. 

"You know you don't have to do all this, right? I know you like things tidy, but you could read a book or something if you want. I can take care of my own lunch."

"If you or my Universe desire me to educate myself on a particular topic, you have only to request it."

Steven brightened. "Hey, do you still have any old stuff stored in your gem? I bet you put books you liked in there. Maybe you could just pick one that looks fun."

The Earth concept of fun really was overdone. Yellow seemed to think it significant, Steven recommended it, and it featured in at least one of the songs Sadie Killer sang, but it held no purpose for a Pearl who wasn't built to have meaningful emotions in the first place. Still, she closed her eyes to focus on her storage collection.

There was quite a lot in there that she didn’t remember adding. Alphabetized (in English--most of the items were Earth things, so that was fair enough) and sensibly catalogued--she was at least satisfied that her former self hadn’t been a complete heathen. She’d apparently stashed most of the books in a subcategory, logically labeled “Books.” There were hundreds. No, thousands. Tens of thousands? Pearl scanned a few of the titles. Arabic Poetry; Arpeggios, Scales, and Chords; Art of War; Artificial Intelligence: An Advanced Course; Asimov (she’d apparently grouped those by author); Astrophysics for People in a Hurry; Augmented and Virtual Reality; Austrian Ballet--this was a terrible system. She should really sort them by subject, then alphabetize. What if there were an “Intermediate Guide to Artificial Intelligence” somewhere further in? Ridiculous. Pearl was about to start reorganizing when she remembered the whole point of her mental visit.

Steven. Books. A book to read to make Steven happy with her, and thereby also please Um Greg. She knew Um Greg appreciated music, his van, and food, so… Automotive Repair looked promising.

She opened her eyes and levitated the book out of her gem.

“Cars, eh? You always were into driving.” Steven smirked at some inside joke. Then he smiled a real smile and patted her back. “Hope you like it. And if you want to go for a drive sometime, we totally can.”

Well, he’d missed the point, but that was probably for the best. She smiled, nodded, and stood in the corner, obediently cracking open the book. Some of the pages were stuck together or smeared with oil, and Pearl was shocked at her past self’s negligence until she realized it was a secondhand copy--someone had scribbled “Chad Knaus” on the inside cover. 

It turned out to be a fascinatingly informative read. She was so absorbed in the incredible way humans had devised primitive machines to compensate for their weaknesses that she jumped when Steven’s plate clattered in the sink.

“Oh! Oh, please forgive my lack of attention. I’ll see to those immediately, m--Steven.” She slipped the book back into her gem and darted to the kitchen.

“No, it’s okay, Pearl. I’m old enough to handle my own dishes. If you like that book, you should keep reading it.”

“It’s an excellent book. I’ve learned so much already! Human innovation is both adorable and admirable. The details they’ve put into such overcomplicated systems are so unnecessary, and yet so telling of their determination."

Steven laughed. "Yeah, that's probably true. I’m glad you’re getting so much out of it.” He put his plate on the drying rack and tapped something on his phone. “I think I'm going to check out the city now. You ready?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Running with the possibility that all the physical stuff is still accessible in Pearl’s gem, since it was collected, not created, and not solely tied to her old emotions/memories, which are *not* accessible (but are still present. Sort of encrypted, you could say). I never did figure out how that works, though. Maybe contact with her gem converts the matter into light, or electrical patterns like code, for storage.
> 
> Hope you’re all enjoying wherever you are right now! There’s this cool evergreen tree in my neighborhood that’s basically become a trellis for a giant, branching rose vine/bush. It’s probably symbolic, in this fandom. :)


	7. Chapter 7

They started at the original injector site. Steven crouched down and started kissing the ground, and Pearl began her documentation. It seemed that the townspeople hadn’t even attempted this section yet. The pink acid from yesterday had congealed into a shiny, gelatinous goo, likely to harden into glasslike matter if they didn’t figure out how to eliminate it. Healing the Earth was one thing. Getting rid of the poison debris was another. It had sunk deep into the trenches and craters scarring the hillside, and it wasn’t clear how dangerous it might still be, or what Steven’s powers could do to ease the problem.

A small, green figure zoomed up the slope on a metal lid and almost slammed into Pearl.

“I’m here! I’m here! I brought my analyzer and--you didn’t fix her yet? I mean, that’s fine, I guess, but isn’t she Greg’s right now? What’s she doing here?”

“Hey, Peridot, thanks for coming. I was actually hoping you could work with Pearl on this one.”

Peridot narrowed her eyes at Pearl, who smiled nicely. Peridots were of slightly above average rank, and this one--despite her size--seemed to be Steven’s friend. 

“I don’t think so. She’s useless like this. Pearls are really just decorative storage units unless they go way beyond their program.”

“Peridot,” Steven warned.

“Ugh, fine. They can also open doors.”

“Actually, we’re Customizable Multipurpose Units Designed to Satisfy the Every Need of the Accomplished Gem Elite.” Pearl puffed out her chest. “Our functions are near limitless.”

Peridot gave Steven a look.

“Our Pearl--painful as it is to say--actually rivaled my mechanical prowess and intelligence. This one is an idiot.”

Pearl’s expression didn’t change, but she did decide she disliked Peridot. 

Steven sighed. “Just give it a try. Her potential’s still there, even if she doesn’t remember everything.”

“Fine. Come on, Pearl. Let’s run some tests.”

She set up a mini laboratory on the peak by the lighthouse. Pearl's duty was gathering samples of acid in various states into glass vials. Peridot hadn't requested it, but she also labeled them with Earth coordinates precise to the meter, as well as noting each location's temperature, humidity, and wind velocity. 

When she took the collection of vials out of her gem and put them on the field laboratory table, she very pointedly turned the labels towards Peridot. Her eyes narrowed behind her giant visor.

"Are you sure you don't remember anything? This passive aggressive sass is distinctly Pearl-ish."

Pearl presented her most polite smile. "I only hope I've provided helpful data and pleased you and Steven."

"Hmmm." Peridot started filling her customized microwave with samples. She glanced back at Pearl, waiting in standby position. "This is what it's like having my own Pearl, huh? Weird. I used to think it would be this awesome status symbol, make me look like I was really someone, even though I was just a lame Era 2."

That's exactly what she was supposed to do. Pearl's mere presence was supposed to elevate the mass opinion of her owner. 

"Turns out it's just feeling guilty for ordering around another gem who won't say no. Stupid empathy, ruining my dreams. Pass me that roll of paper."

She did. Even if this Peridot was too small and rude, and didn't respect the order of things in the empire, she was still a superior. 

"Thanks. Hmm, interesting results here. What do you think of--oh, never mind. I forgot you're still like that."

Pearl sneaked a look at the paper. Peridot's evaluation was obvious.

"This biopoison was a manufactured reverse of Pink Diamond's healing fluid. Steven's saliva should perfectly neutralize all incidences of it, if he can avoid touching it with his human parts." Pearl enjoyed her height advantage to look down her nose. In a completely helpful and friendly manner, as befit a servant of Um Greg. 

Peridot blinked.

"Uh. Yes, that's accurate."

"But how did the Spinel acquire something like that? Why did one of those massive injectors only respond to her? Spinels are designed for playful friendship and entertainment, not kindergarten management or organic cleansing. She certainly wouldn't be capable of creating it herself."

"How am I supposed to know? I never heard about any Spinels when I worked on the kindergarten projects. The poison doesn’t affect gems, and the Diamonds wouldn’t have wanted to destroy all of Earth’s organic resources when they could use them instead, especially when they had the cluster incubating and ready to wipe any leftover life. So it might be new and someone made the injector specially for her. Or maybe Pink Diamond made it ages ago and hid it in her garden, and Spinel figured out how to use it."

Pearl frowned and took the analysis paper from Peridot, reading as she spoke. "There are too many unknowns and inconsistencies. But if there were others involved who manufactured it and gave it to Spinel recently, Steven is in danger, and my Universe values him as much as himself."

Peridot nodded and grabbed the paper back. "Maybe all this'll give Garnet some direction for her clairvoyance. And I'll talk to Lapis and Bismuth about Steven guard duty. They're the strongest gems we can trust." She started to levitate her lid, but paused barely off the ground. "Uh, I guess I should also apologize for treating you like a Pearl.” 

Pearl raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be demeaning or gratifying. But it was nice having someone else need to apologize, this time.

“You know what I mean! All gems are equal and all those Stevenisms, and I shouldn’t have underestimated you--again--”

Again?

“--And I don’t know, maybe we should hang out more. It’s a human thing.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Peridot mumbled something else, then zoomed away, leaving her laboratory on the hill. Steven waved as she passed. He stretched and walked up to Pearl.

"How'd it go?" 

"We discovered that the biopoison was artificially created as the perfect reverse of your healing power. So as long as your human body doesn't touch it, you'll be able to neutralize any remaining pieces of the acid upon contact with your saliva. In fact, with some mechanical alterations to the kindergarten injectors, we should be able to replicate the healing solution used in the spray bottles at a much larger scale." 

"Okay. Great!" He spit at a vein of pink close to their feet. It dissolved instantly, and he grinned and held up a hand for a high five. Pearl had seen this custom before. It was an Earth exclusive, hitting hands in celebration, like a partnered clap. She used her maximum force to slap his palm, and he skidded back and rubbed his hand.

"Nice one. So where'd Peridot go?"

"To prepare various other gems to protect you in the event that Spinel's attack was orchestrated by a more powerful foe."

Steven stood still for a moment. Then he groaned and threw his hands in the air, starting down the hill. "Of course. Whatever. It'll be fine."

"Where are we going now?"

"The rest of the city. We still have work to do."

Steven led the tour of Beach City’s revitalization. The healing solution itself was even more effective than they’d hoped, and everyone they met moved with exhausted satisfaction, flowers and trees and birds and insects thriving wherever they’d been. The ocean was noticeably clearer. Somehow, the volunteers had even removed most of the fish corpses that had washed onto the beach. 

Pearl was discovering that Earth’s routines revolved around human eating times, and the third major meal was something of an impromptu potluck at what was left of the warehouse.

“Sure glad you made the backup generator after that one time,” one of the Pizza sisters said to Pearl, passing her with a plate of food. “I mean, the pizza shop’s destroyed, but none of the fridges that survived lost power. Hallelujah for hot dogs, am I right?” 

Pearl thought they looked like Jasper fingers, but Earthlings loved them. She smiled and gave a quick diamond salute. The Pizza girl raised her eyebrows and moved on. Steven was occupied with friends now, so Pearl felt free to step outside and watch for Um Greg from the dilapidated roof.

Soothed by the relative quiet there, she stole a few seconds to watch the ocean. At night, under a partial moon, it was only a black nothingness that faded seamlessly into the sky, but she could hear it, if she listened over the happy chaos in the warehouse. And the closer she was to the stars, the more complete she felt--although that was a silly thought, not even worth the time to think it. Um Greg Universe was everything she could ever wish for. Where she was and what she did were irrelevant, as long as she served him.

She snapped her gaze back to the road. It only took a few hours until she identified his headlights, but by then, the warehouse had emptied, and most of the humans and gems had returned to Little Homeworld. She leaped down from the wall, posing in a deep curtsy until Greg stopped the van. As soon as the motor stuttered to sleep, she rushed to open his door.

He sighed, and leaned back in his seat. "So your day with Steven was a bust, huh?"

"Not at all! You'll be pleased to learn that revival efforts were even more productive than predicted, we acquired additional information about the toxin, and we planned further measures for rapid and effective cleansing."

He half-smiled. It looked less happy than it should have. "That's great. I'm gonna park by the temple for the night, and we'll talk more in the morning." He yawned. "You coming? I probably shouldn't be driving drowsy, so you got the wheel."

He climbed into the back, and Pearl skimmed her former self's inner library for a driving manual. There were several, all more advanced than this vehicle warranted, and it was a simple thing to drive the van to the beach by Steven's house while Greg snored behind her.

Pearl knelt by Greg’s side in the van, dividing the night between staring at him--sleep was such a strange state, but so calming to watch--and peeking up at Steven’s window, which was where she happened to be looking when light flashed from the warp. 

Two Pearls made their graceful descent down the Temple’s rickety staircase moments later, giggling and gesturing. Pearl shrank closer to Greg. Their shared programming may have united them once, but she had no desire at all to talk to Yellow. Possibly ever. Greg would tell her she should apologize, but he hadn’t expressly commanded it, so… She believed in obeying the letter of the law, after all, and if he hadn’t said it, surely she shouldn’t do it. She was absolutely not rationalizing. She was being a good Pearl. Hiding from the two coming towards the van was perfectly in line with that. Nothing self-centered about it. In fact, it didn’t even concern her that they were getting closer and closer.

While Pearl was very proficient at lying to herself, it was significantly trickier when Blue knocked on the back door, then without waiting for an answer, opened it and let herself in. Pearl stared, hoping Blue would feel uncomfortable enough to let herself out.

Unfortunately, this was not even close to the most uncomfortable situation Blue had been in, and she crawled closer. 

“Rainbow? How are you? I’m glad you’ve healed.” She stopped for a length of time, maybe waiting for a response. Eventually she pushed the back door fully open, and Pearl had hope that the conversation had been disappointing enough that she’d leave. But Yellow’s pointy nose poked into the van, and that hope vanished. “Yellow wants to talk with you.”

Yellow climbed in, squeezing past Blue to sit knee to knee with Pearl. The stars and moon and light from the temple made it just bright enough to watch her face as it hovered between a sneer and apprehension. She sighed sharply.

“Yes. Here I am. I should not have initiated violence earlier. Please forgive me.”

“And I should not have antagonized all of you. Forgiveness begets forgiveness, I hope.”

Greg rolled over in his sleep, and the Pearls jumped.

“Is he sleeping again? What do you even do without direction for a third of your time?”

“Talk to you, it would seem.” Yellow frowned, and Pearl tried to soften the statement. “I have only existed for two and a half nights and seen you on both of the most recent. He hasn’t set me a routine yet. Did the broadcast go well?”

Yellow laughed, so loud that Greg snorted and pulled his blanket over his head. She covered her mouth. “It certainly did. The natives all idolize Steven, and they were wearing fluffy headdresses to emulate his hair--”

“Which turned out to be masses of insects all clinging together--”

“And Blue Diamond came to give her blessing, and touched one of them--”

“And they came swarming up her robe and we got her reaction shared with the entire local galaxy!” 

Blue shook with giggles so hard it rattled the van, and Yellow streamed tears along with her silent cackling.

Pearl couldn’t help but smile at their delight. But Um Greg was still there, and sleeping required no distractions, so she ushered the other Pearls out and onto the sand. 

“Did Pink go with you?”

“No, she ended up staying with the Chalcedonies at Little Homeworld,” Yellow said. “I think she doesn’t want to be around the Diamonds.”

The mood dimmed, and Pearl was sorry for it.

“No one wants to be around the Diamonds.” Blue sat and traced the sand with one finger. “It’s easier to blame them for everything our lives used to be before we knew better. But they all--even White--were just as trapped as we were.”

Yellow sat down next to her, and Pearl knelt, a little distance away. Yellow looked at her, then at the ocean. “They were terrible. But it’s all they knew, and all we knew. You don’t have to live that. Greg is a nice human, and you are--or were, I suppose--the only assassin, rebel general, starship mechanic pearl I’ve ever heard of.”

“Wonderful.”

“I just mean, you’ve always been more than ‘only’ a Pearl.”

They were quiet together until dawn, when Yellow nodded to herself and stood up. “This is a good tradition. We’ll find you again tomorrow night, Rainbow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to wish you a productive and peaceful day, whatever that means for you :)


	8. Road Trippin

I buckled myself in shotgun. “Okay, last call for the bathroom before we go.”  
Sadie groaned. “Greg, we’re adults.”  
“I know, I know, it’s just the dad in me. All right then! Pearl, let’s hit the road! Uh, go!”  
Pearl started the engine and began the drive to Empire City. She’d drive through the night while the rest of us slept, and we’d get to the venue in the morning to set up. The kids were whispering to each other, while Amethyst played some kind of video game in the farthest back row of seats.  
I maybe eavesdropped a little.  
“She’s really coming with us?”  
“I mean, it's kinda shallow, but her look does not go with the Sadie Killer vibe we're going for.”  
“Come on guys, be cool. We have way more space back here, since she put all the gear in her head.”  
“Yeah… That was weird. But not weird enough to be worthy of Ronaldo’s blog.”  
They all snickered, and the conversation got louder. I propped my feet up on the dash. I wasn’t about to tell Pearl, but it was nice getting to watch the scenery instead of the road. All the kudzu looked like Dr. Seuss landscapes or something, especially with the sunset turning everything red and purple. Rose had liked the kudzu at first, thought it looked cool, but she kind of got bummed when she realized it was smothering the rest of the plants.  
I glanced at Pearl an hour in. She was still focused on the road, but she seemed tense.  
“Doing okay, Pearl?”  
She wouldn’t tell me if she wasn’t. I used to complain about Pearl complaining about stuff, but at least I knew some of what she was thinking back then. This was like trying to guess how a robot felt. You knew it was smarter than you, but you didn’t know why it wasn’t smart enough to stop listening to you.  
“Yes, I’m still functioning optimally. Do you need something?”  
“Nah. You just looked… Stressed.”  
Pearl suddenly smiled, a little too wide. “Oh. Not at all.”  
“Right. Well, tell me if you wanna talk.”   
For once, she didn’t, and I dozed off.  
When I woke up, we were at a gas station, and everyone in the back was asleep. Pearl was just shutting off the engine.  
“Gas… You need some cash? The van’s gas mileage sucks, so it’s gonna be a lot.”  
I handed her some twenties and she got out and stood at the screen for a minute. Oops, forgot she probably didn’t remember how that worked. But right when I was going to get out and help her, she smoothly paid and got the pump running. I watched her check the tires, wash the windows, put up the hood and mess with something in there, pull a wrench out of her gem (some guy on the other side of the pump yelled a word I hoped Pearl didn’t know), tighten the hubcaps, shut off the pump, and grab the receipt.  
I was going to miss this when she was back to normal: having someone do everything for me, and actually think I was someone special. I mean, it didn’t really count, but… it was still nice. And oh boy, did I feel guilty about that.  
“The receipt, my Universe.” She got in her side and handed me the paper.  
“Thanks. Hey, looks like you still know your way around a car.”  
“I did some reading, at Steven’s recommendation.”   
“Oh yeah? Anything good?”  
“It was certainly informative. Your vehicle, my Universe—well. I was only wondering why you haven’t upgraded to a more advanced model.”  
I patted the armrest.  
“Me and this van have been through a lot together, Pearl. It made me who I am, in a lot of ways. I can't just throw something out when it’s done so much for me, even if I could get a better one.”  
And yes, okay, I was definitely using this as a metaphor. Hopefully she’d get it.  
She glanced in my direction. “We were together often, before? In your photo archive, we didn’t look particularly friendly.”  
Yep, she got it.  
“Well, kinda.” I leaned against the window to angle more towards her. “I not-exactly-accidentally stole your… Uh… Girlfriend? Your old owner, I guess. She decided to give up her existence to make a new human with me. You kinda hated me for a while.”  
“I understand. If someone caused you to cease existing, I would likely attempt to shatter them.”  
A high-pitched, really fake giggle came out of my mouth. Glad she’d mostly gotten past her assassination phase before my thing with Rose. Though that did explain a few times. “Yeah, it took us a while to be friends, but we had to work together to take care of Steven. Whether either of us liked it, I was a big part of your life, and you were a big part of mine. It took a lot of work to get to where we are now—er, I guess where we were before, when we could finally hang out together just for fun. Even though you’re, y’know, helpful and all now, I miss just palling around, being friends.”  
“I… see.” The road widened, and Pearl merged into the right lane. “I think I’m… Perhaps… I… I discovered, as we were driving, that I might be experiencing ‘desire.’”  
“What?!” I jolted upright and squeezed against the door. One of the kids in the back groaned in their sleep. This was not going where I wanted it to.  
“I believe I’m desiring… certain things. Things you haven't requested. But they will affect our time together.”  
I clapped a hand over my mouth. So, so not ready to have this talk.   
“But I—it’s a recent development, and I haven’t acted on anything—“  
Not reassuring, Pearl.  
“I simply thought I should inform you, in case you wanted to take action.”  
I wrapped an arm around my stomach, and covered my eyes with the other. Oi vey. I mean, she wouldn’t be my first gem, obviously, and I always assumed but absolutely never wanted to think about how she’d probably had… something…at least once in her bajillion years on Earth, but… Nope nope nope.  
“It may be best to wait until we’ve reached a stop, since it would be dangerous to distract a driver, but I will accept whatever you see fit to do.”  
“Hooo boy, Pearl. I was not ready for this.”  
She winced. Smooth, Greg, letting her down like a pile of bricks. I tried to soften it.  
“Look, you’re great, and I like you as a friend, and I even think you’re really pretty, even though you’re not my type.” Pearl was like a snowflake. Beautiful, sure, but not… attractive. At least not to me. I liked… Well, I liked Rose. Larger than life, full of life, soft and fat and gorgeous and graceful and warm with those amazing curls and the sparkling eyes and the perfect lips. She’d been like some kind of pink, primal goddess. I’d never find anyone who looked like her, let alone had her kind of wonder and love and just joy about things.   
That wasn’t the real problem, though. I looked back at Pearl, who mostly just seemed confused, and I kept digging my grave.  
“Look, I know you’re like ten thousand years old and you should be able to make your own choices, but this would be really wrong. I’d be taking advantage of my position here, even if I don’t want to be your boss in the first place. How ‘bout you look around for some other people you’re interested in, huh?”  
She could not have looked more confused. This wasn’t going well.  
“Are you telling me to find other people to teach?”  
“Uhhh…‘Teach?’ Is that some kind of gem slang?”  
“I have a desire to learn about everything, the way this world and others function, and to share my knowledge, and not for the sole purpose of serving you,” Pearl said, tensing up all over like she was in trouble.   
So… she “desired” to... be a teacher. I sagged and sighed, grinning. Oh my gosh. Best misunderstanding of my life.  
Pearl pulled her shoulders in further.  
“I understand that this is grounds for reprogramming me, at the very least, but I didn’t want to allow myself to go unchecked when it could undermine my utility and cause greater future problems.”  
I couldn’t help it. I started laughing.  
“Are you angry?” She spared a split second to squint at me.  
“Oh man, I’ve never been so happy to have things not go the way I expected. I uh—I just misinterpreted something you said. If learning stuff and teaching people is what you wanna do, do it! It doesn’t matter what I want, but you doing what you want IS what I want!” I rolled down my window and laughed into the wind, shaking out my hair.  
“So you actually approve of me spending my time in selfish pursuits?”  
“Sure! Yes! Please!”  
Pearl still looked confused, but she relaxed a little.  
“What did you think I meant, before?”  
My laughter died to an embarrassed chuckle. “Nothing. I mean, don’t worry about it. It’s all good. I’m gonna try to get a little more sleep now. Do the things you want to, Pearl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after spending six months trying to write a chapter to go before this one, I surrendered and decided to just hurry up and finish posting the rest of this thing for the sake of finishing something, darn it. :) Hope you’re doing well!


	9. Ketchup Packets, Food of the Goddess

Setup the next day was chaotic. For Pearl, it was a mess of humans hurrying around, demanding silence one second and “sound checks” the next, people yelling at her to grab equipment out of her gem and yelling at her when it was the wrong gear and yelling at her to put their junk back inside her and yelling at her because they were seriously alarmed at “Greg’s magical tutu alien” moving things in and out of the giant pearl stuck to her forehead.  
Amethyst finished piecing together her cymbal and swung an arm around Pearl.  
“Hey, let’s go pick up lunch for these guys. You got money, right?” When Pearl nodded, Amethyst shot a text to Greg and grabbed Pearl’s hand. “There’s a burger place a couple blocks down with THE best ketchup in the world. I don’t know where they get their packets, but man, they’re good.”  
She led Pearl out the back doors and down the alley. The bricks were plastered with decomposing posters for concerts, the ground littered with an incredible array of human garbage. Amethyst let go of Pearl’s hand to grab a bent harmonica.  
“Dude, check this out!” She blew into it, and a wheezy cacophony emerged. “I need this. Can you keep it in your gem for me?”  
“I’m not your containment unit.”  
Amethyst just stuck her tongue out and grinned. “Whatever, P. Guess I have pockets. Hey, did you try eating yet? You might liiiiiike it.”  
“I ate a piece of a waffle.”  
“Whoa, seriously? Bold move!”  
“It was a horrible, disgusting experience I hope to never repeat or remember for the remainder of my existence.”  
Amethyst groaned. “Fine, I guess you’re just not into food. Even though it’s the best thing humans ever invented.”  
They bought five meals for Greg and the band, and Pearl added a piece of money for the obscene quantity of ketchup packets Amethyst was collecting. It placated the shop owner, though most of the customers had their phones pointed at either Amethyst, who was now shoveling ketchup packets into her mouth, or Pearl, who carefully placed the receipt, bags, and drinks into her gem.  
Amethyst burped. “Check out Sadie Killer and the Suspects, tonight and Saturday at the Old Equestrian!” A few of them cheered.  
Pearl took out her travel brochure as they headed back.  
“This building has collapsed and been reconstructed four times due to corrupt construction companies skimping on materials,” Pearl commented as they passed a tall brick structure. “Bismuth work would never be so shoddy. These humans are so inefficient.”  
“Yeah, Bismuth work,” Amethyst said, elbowing her.  
Pearl ignored it, both because she had no idea what that meant, and because they were approaching a sculpture garden. “Oh! Oh! Amethyst! Let me show you this place! The brochure doesn’t go into depth, but the van radio had a local arts segment last night, and the combination of artistic influences on these pieces spans Earth’s history!”  
She pulled Amethyst around the garden, explaining each of the installments with all the authority two hours of community information radio had given her. Amethyst sighed every time they turned a corner and there was another one, but she was smiling.  
Pearl realized, after fifteen minutes, that they should probably return to deliver the food to the band, and Amethyst slung an arm around her as they walked back to the venue. It made walking somewhat awkward, but Pearl allowed it. She’d never admit it, but she liked being touched. It was part of her programming, meant to keep Pearls loyal, addicted in a certain sense to the pets, pats, and physical direction most owners instinctively gave. It was a slight breach of etiquette for someone to touch another gem’s Pearl, in fact, but Greg wouldn’t know that, and she suspected he wouldn’t care. This felt nice.  
For some reason, Greg popped a thumb up at Amethyst when they walked in. Amethyst stuck up two fingers in a V.  
"Yo peeps, we got your food!"  
Pearl spread a large lace tablecloth over the beat-up coffee table, and displayed each of the bags and drinks with artistic precision.  
"Thanks, man," Sour Cream said, grabbing a sandwich. "This is good stuff."  
The others chimed in their thanks and sprawled around the room with their lunches. Pearl pulled out her automotive repair book and picked up where she'd left off, and Amethyst casually prowled around, stealing fries. Greg ate fast, and beckoned Amethyst over. The kids were chatting between bites, and heavy objects ground across the floor on the stage above them, but Pearl still caught most of their conversation.  
“How’d it go?”  
“Really good! She was annoyed at me like normal, and dragging me around telling me about boring stuff like normal, and I mean you saw us walk in—she’s not sticking to Homeworld rules like she was. Honestly I just don’t know what else we’re supposed to do to get her to switch back.”  
Greg sighed. “I don’t know either. I think maybe it isn’t gonna happen while she still thinks she has an owner, but we’ve tried everything we can think of. I don’t know how to change her mind.”  
“Well, Steven made up a song about… uh... something something, change your mind, something… I dunno, maybe he can sing it to her when we get back. She does do a lot of character development through singing. And crying, but multiple people would literally kill me if I made her cry.”  
“We really are just Crying Breakfast Friends.” Greg gazed into the distance. “You know what, I could write a song about that!”  
Before Pearl could hear what came of that, Jenny sauntered over to her.  
“Hey, Pearl, how’s it going?”  
“Fine?” She slid the book back inside and crossed her hands politely. “How are you?”  
“Oh I’m good. We were just talking though, and you’d be like, crazy helpful for stage crew stuff. Like you can just stick a backdrop in your gem and whip it out whenever, right?”  
“Yes, I can do that.”  
“See, that’s what I thought! So Sour Cream wrote up some staging directions, if you wanna give it a try. We have plenty of time for a run through or two.”  
She handed Pearl a stained paper, pencilled with wandering ideas for what to put where when. She’d need to rewrite it, if she managed to interpret it at all.  
“A practice would be helpful.”  
“You got it! Oh, one more thing, though. I’m all about expressing yourself with what you wear, and your look is totally you—I guess—but stage crew’s supposed to kinda blend in. Not, y’know, draw attention. Like they usually just wear all black.”  
Well, that was going to be a problem. “My ‘clothes’ are an extension of my form. I can change the shape, texture, and color, but only within certain parameters. Pearls require a form-fitting base with at least one tulle or chiffon addition. Our colors are limited to our owner or creator’s palette. Any deviations from those parameters are extremely difficult to achieve, though special Pearl editions have increased flexibility.”  
“Huh. Okay, I can work with that. Hang on a sec.” Jenny took the paper back and sketched something on the other side. “How about this? Whatever colors you want. Then we can just borrow some actual clothes and put them over top. We just can’t do anything with your poofiness happening right now, no offense.”  
The sketch was somewhat more complicated than an average Pearl base. A leotard with long sleeves, marked “chiffon,” thin straps that crossed at the chest and back, a wrap skirt over tights that would go to her ankles, and flats much like her current shoes.  
“Make sure you get the crossed straps on the sides of the leggings, too. They’re gonna really pull the look together, trust me.”  
“That will work.”  
Jenny squealed and did a little dance. “Ooh, I have so many other super cute ideas! You don’t mind changing up your look like, every day, do you?”  
“Um…”  
“I’m gonna go find you the black stuff for on top. Don’t go anywhere!”  
Pearl studied the drawing again. It wouldn’t be difficult, especially since she was, in fact, a special edition. Actually, it was an extremely simple design, compared to her initially programmed “starter set.” She squeezed past furniture and knees to reach Greg and Amethyst.  
“Excuse me, my Um Greg, but Jenny would like me to alter my external appearance to suit a stage crew costume. I require your approval.”  
He glanced at Amethyst, then looked at the paper. “Jenny, huh? Works for me, Pearl, if you like it.”  
“Do you request any changes or color specifications?”  
“Nope. Go crazy.”  
Pearl wished she could match Greg’s palette, but he had no gem she could sync with. Still, she knew the van, and her creator’s palette was still at play in her appearance file. She could draw on the off-white and light blue from his logo, certainly, and add in pink as a nod to his son, perhaps mix a few of the pastels for more visual appeal—plan in place, she nodded and closed her eyes to focus.  
It had been a few weeks since her initial formation, but the tingling was familiar, as she converted solid matter back into energy. Being light was warm and free. Too free, actually. It was a struggle to keep her particles close without them dissolving into her gem. She concentrated on the look she was aiming for, visualizing, drawing energy from her gem. In a rush of cool comfort—it really was a relief to convert her energetic light particles into more easily controlled matter—she settled into her new form.  
Jenny thumped down the stairs with a pile of black clothes in hand. “Hey y’all, I’m back! Pearl!? You look amazing, girl! See, I knew this was a good idea. Feel any different?”  
“Well, my Um Greg--”  
“Hm. Guess not. I thought maybe if you dressed different, you’d feel different. Kiki’s gonna be disappointed.” She sighed, and Buck shrugged.  
“It was a good try.”  
“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, here’s the stuff I borrowed from the lighting crew. Try it on!”  
Pearl accepted the bundle and pulled the pants onto her legs. They were terrible. Scratchy and confining, too baggy for her legs to position against each other properly, rubbing against her particles in an extremely irritating way. As soon as she let them go, they flopped to her ankles.  
“Oh. Here’s the belt. I forgot you’re like, the size of my arm.”  
Pearl looked to Greg, praying he’d say something to get her out of this, but he was adjusting his headset and craning back to talk to Amethyst. No luck there.  
The belt managed to make the pants even less comfortable, somehow. They were bunched around her waist, chiffon skirt crumpled underneath, while the tail of the belt swung halfway to her knee. Jenny wanted to see if the shirt would work, so Pearl tugged that over her hair.  
It was less huge, and softer and less restrictive than the pants. She could tolerate it, at least, and tucking it in helped with the pants. Slightly.  
Jenny attempted to smile, but it was half-hearted at best. “At least you won’t stand out as bad. We’re going shopping after all this, though. What do you think, Steven’s Dad?”  
“Huh? Just a sec, Marge. Uh, looks good, Jenny. You guys run through the ons and offs, and let me know if there are any problems. Okay Marge, keep going.”  
Well, whatever he really thought, Pearl didn’t like pants. At least not these pants. If she was going to wear pants, it was going to be on her terms. As soon as Jenny’s back was turned, she slipped behind one of the lopsided curtains dangling by the wall and took off the abominations, replacing them with a pair she’d found in her former self’s collection of human costumes. They even came with black shoes, which she thought ought to be appreciated. She stepped out and handed the first pair of pants to Jenny.  
“I just found a—ah—more appropriate item in my inventory. Thank you for these, but you may return them.”  
“Oh thank goodness. See, now you look cute! You guys ready to run through the stage directions?”  
Sadie led the group up the stairs to the stage. It took some trial and error, but eventually Pearl had a working set of instructions and more weird props than she’d ever imagined would be in her head. She was ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, all this band stuff is loosely based on my experience with Irish dance I did with a folk music group at this cool, weird little theater. :)


	10. Just Your Average Set

The performance began smoothly. It wasn’t a sold-out show, but they’d gathered a good-sized crowd in the concrete pit below, and energy levels were high. Sadie was in her element, lighting the stage and drawing cheers like Pearl had never heard, with Buck a coolly sedate foil to her, content with his guitar at stage right. Jenny on bass and Amethyst behind the drum set swapped ridiculous faces at each other the entire time, and clearly had a whole arsenal of wordless inside jokes. Eyes closed and rocking to the beat, Sour Cream seemed fully immersed in a zen state, even as his fingers danced rapidly around buttons and slides and switches. Pearl herself couldn’t keep a grin off her face, though it faded when she saw Greg, one hand on his earpiece and the other shuffling through papers. She should be helping him—but there came a cue, and she darted onto the stage, switched the creepy forest decor for apocalyptic wasteland, and darted back behind her curtain on the side. She’d have to help him by helping his band, she supposed.   
Unfortunately, the second half got messy. The sound tech somehow faded the lead mic and couldn’t bring it back up. Sadie improvised and grabbed Jenny’s vocals mic, but then the substitute lighting crew they’d hired accidentally swung a spotlight too far, and it stuck, jittering, focused on the far back corner of the stage, right on top of a box speaker. Sadie jumped up on it to take what advantage she could. However, with her leap onto the box, her foot brushed Sour Cream’s gear. It crashed to the floor, and in Sour Cream’s desperate grab for it, he nicked the neck of Jenny’s guitar. She stumbled into the curtain, tripped on the cord of the mic she’d lent Sadie, got snagged on one of the loose threads, and pulled the entire row of curtains to the ground. Greg was pacing in a tiny circle when it happened, muttering intensely into his headset, his fingers raking through his hair over and over. But when the curtain fell with one of the metal pipes holding it up, one of the planks under his feet broke, and he dropped halfway through the floor with a yelp.  
Buck kept playing.  
Amethyst dropped her sticks and yanked out her whip. “Hey! Pick on someone your own size, you… Oh. You curtain.” She stayed standing on her stool, and shrugged.  
This was not supposed to happen, and as the high quality Pearl of a distinguished master, Pearl would not let her owner’s venture fail. She grabbed the rod of curtains and leaped up to the rafters, lodging it securely in place. Jenny was helping Greg out of the hole in the floor, and he seemed more surprised than hurt, so that was handled for now. She jumped to the struggling light technician.  
“Uh, hey? Did you just—jump? Up here? Whatever, things can’t get any weirder. Give me a hand? This thing is jammed.”  
Pearl quickly made things considerably weirder. She pulled a wrench out of her gem, then let her forehead shift to beam mode so she could see in the shadows. This may have been a wholly different type of machine, but her training in van repair made it a simple fix. Leaving the tech fumbling with her phone and trying to get Pearl to “do it again, I gotta video that,” Pearl launched herself off the wall towards the sound booth.  
It was glass enclosed, but she found enough handholds to get her to the door on the balcony and climb in.  
“Holy—what’s going on?!”  
“Just stay back there and let me fix this, thank you.”  
The control panel for the sound was a simple cross between Sour Cream’s board and a Homeworld piloting station, and Pearl was well acquainted with both, at least in theory. The problem was easily seen, easily solved, and easily prevented in the future. She wouldn’t be able to leap back up into the rafters above the stage at this angle, though—but for the sake of expeditiously resuming the performance, she needed to be back to the stage immediately. With a sigh, she pushed past the protesting sound man and out the door to the balcony alcove. Nothing to be done for it. The fastest way to solve all this was propelling herself from here straight onto the stage, so she did, landing with a roll and springing into action.   
Greg was, of course, first priority. She vaulted over Jenny to him. He was standing a few meters from the gaping hole in the floor, gesturing as he spoke furiously into his headset.  
“My Um Greg! Are you hurt? How can I—“  
“I’m fine! Go help the band!” He shooed her away.  
Pearl gave the stage a strategic look. Buck, Amethyst, and Sadie were trying to keep a song going, but with Jenny’s mic now somewhere in the mess of Sour Cream’s instrument, she was squeezed next to Amethyst, trying to share hers, and Amethyst was stuck with access to only half her drum set.   
She wished she could simply toss everyone back into their proper places, but humans were awfully fragile. Gently, she picked up Sadie (who just kept on singing) and held her over her head, carefully walking her over the catastrophe back to her now-functional microphone. There. Now Sadie was in the correct spot. Jenny would be even quicker—dust her off, retune her guitar, return her vocals mic with a little tweak to the input cable, done!   
Sour Cream’s circumstances were more difficult. The band’s sound was adequate now, and they’d managed to get back into the beat of the piece, but it was missing the life his audial effects sparked. However, it would take at least the length of a song to jerry-rig his instrument into even passable condition.   
“Sour Cream!” she whispered to him, tugging his pants leg. “I can fix this, but I need five minutes and I have two staging responsibilities before the next number. Please see to them.” She dumped the set pieces from her gem into the wings, along with her neatly recorded instructions, and he ran to obey.  
The audience, at this point, was surging with chaos, but as soon as Sadie started screaming the chorus, they whooped and cheered.  
Pearl tuned it all out, lips tight as she searched the floor for the mangled pieces of the soundboard. Sadie looked back once, then met her eyes and grinned, and Pearl kept sorting pieces, pulling scrap metal out of her gem to shape what was too destroyed to reuse. Her former self had an incredible variety of generally useless things that were actually turning out to be extremely helpful in this unexpected scenario, and she wondered what her life had been like, to make her acquire and keep wire cutters, a lockpick set, and a battery-powered soldering iron. There wasn’t time to delve into those questions, though. She soldered the dozens of wires on the breadboard onto the spare circuit she’d found in her inventory. The physical item was reconstructed now, minus the case, so the real challenge began: reprogramming the thing, with high precision.  
She touched the wires and let their current flow through her particles, transforming and tickling along the way until it reached her gem in a manipulable format. This was deeper-level coding than most of what she’d seen on earth so far, and certainly deeper than the Diamond Authority-sponsored methods that were so intuitive, built into her brain. But it was by no means impossible. She just had to remember the function of all the buttons, and rebuild the audio files accordingly. Sour Cream had initially built it himself out of the breadboard and an adorable little circuit he called Raspberry Pi, and while the circuit had cracked in the disaster, she could make a functional equivalent easily enough. Lines of ons and offs flooded her vision, and she manually shaped them into the effects she’d memorized from watching Sour Cream. Carefully, she converted some of her gem’s energy into thin electrical streams. They crackled like static as she pushed them through her form and then through the wires, separating the files by wire. It wasn’t entirely comfortable—she shuddered at the wrong-way electrical impulses tilting her particles the wrong direction, rubbing the sharp edges against each other. But it was still better than digestion. She finished and blinked a few times, readjusting to the flashing lights and fog machine Sour Cream had set up while she was distracted. The cover was chipped in a few places, but it would at least protect the wires, and she clicked it in. She looked around, hoping to find Sour Cream, but instead, she saw her own gem, magnified a hundred times on the projector screen at the back of the stage.   
“Wha--” There it was: the light tech grinned behind her phone, and shifted it to face the crowd. The image on the projector shifted at the same time, a blurry pan across excited faces.  
“They just filmed you fixing that thing and streamed it there during the last number,” Sour Cream said in her ear. She jumped. “It was awesome! I mean, it was literally the ‘Zombies behind a Screen’ number.”  
“Oh…” Pearl blushed turquoise. The light-blood collecting under her skin felt tingly. “That’s good. I’m sorry for drawing attention to myself, after all the effort Jenny went to make me less obtrusive.”  
“Nah, don’t even worry, man.”  
“Hmm. Well. Your equipment is prepared.”  
“Thanks. I mean, I probably could’ve just used my phone, but this is way cooler.”  
Could’ve just used his… Pearl glared into the distance, feeling a headache grow in her gem. She stalked behind the curtain and took a breath to calm herself. The music was sounding exactly as it was supposed to, now, and she had the rest of this song before her next prop change. She forced on a light smile and walked around to the back, where Greg was biting his lip and watching the stage. She knelt behind him.   
“My Universe. I have ninety seconds before my next responsibility for the set. How may I serve you?”  
He grinned down at her, forehead wrinkles melting away. “You did amazing, Pearl! Gotta say, I’m just waiting for the next disaster right now--no wonder we got this place so easy. It’s no way up to code, let me tell ya--but man, I see how you managed to lead a rebellion!”  
She blushed again, inwardly preening, even if it was odd praise.  
“Look, you don’t need to me to tell you what to do. All that just now was you, saving the day.” He crouched down. “You don’t need someone to belong to. Maybe you can just… belong to you.”  
An exhilarating rush of hope filled Pearl’s form. She could, couldn’t she? Greg was a good person, a good master, but maybe she was also a good person? His ideas were brilliant and beautiful, and his dreams were worth pursuing. But maybe his ideas and dreams weren’t the only ones that would make the universe better. Maybe hers could, too. Maybe she could even make them happen. And maybe they could both have their own, separate dreams, but maybe she could still help him with some things. And maybe he could even help her.  
Something inside her splintered lightly, a hairline crack in glass. She wasn’t quite ready for this. Independence meant finding her own path and blazing it on her own, and it was vastly more comfortable living for someone else. She would stay his. For now. But… not forever.   
She smiled at Greg. “Maybe. Soon. I just need a little more time.”  
Greg sighed, but this time, for once, it wasn’t exasperation coming out, but relief. “Good enough for me. Now get that coffin out there, huh?”

The finale ended with an explosion of light that fell immediately to pitch-blackness. The crowd gasped, the house lights gradually brightened, and the (beautifully functional) spotlight darted around the stage before settling on all five band members, holding hands at the front for their final bow. The audience enthusiastically screamed their appreciation, and began milling around and filing out.  
Pearl stripped out of her human clothes. Greg joined her to clean up the set and prepare it for the next night while the band took care of their instruments. Halfway through folding the gauzy “ghosts,” the sound and light technicians climbed onto the stage.  
Lights Tech was cackling. “That was the best show ever! My Instagram just got a thousand new followers.”  
Sound Guy was less amused. “I have no idea what happened during the show, and I’m sorry for the equipment difficulties on my end, but there’s either something really strange about your stagehand, or I am hallucinating, and I did not do anything today that would typically cause that reaction.”  
“Oh, right. It was so crazy before the show, I forgot to introduce everyone,” Greg said. “So, you already know me, their manager, but we’ve got Sadie, the lead singer--used to run the local doughnut shop, now makes a new sound in the techno-pop-horror genre.”   
Sadie waved shyly.  
“And Jenny Pizza, our bass player who helps out at her family’s fish stew pizza business on the side and has an eye for style.”  
“Sup, y’all.”  
“Sour Cream, with the awesome sound effects that make the Suspects really unique, as well as the area’s most talented DJ.”  
He nodded, earbuds already in.  
“Buck Dewey on guitar, who also just applied to a pre-med program upstate.”  
“I just want to improve people’s lives, you know? Open their minds with music, or open their hearts with a scalpel.”  
“Eh heh… And then Amethyst doing percussion today, former wrestling champion, yoyo master, and one of humanity’s saviors.”  
“Aww, yeah that’s me.”  
“And finally, our stage hand Pearl, former rebel general, mechanic, singer, dancer, history buff, knight, and talented housekeeper.”  
She curtsied.  
“Oh, and she and Amethyst are aliens.”  
“Uh, technically I was born on Earth,” Amethyst pointed out.  
Jenny shrugged. “Yeah, but you can turn into a beachball and you actually like our Literally Every Topping Pizza, so…”  
“Eh, fair point.” She shapeshifted into a cat and rubbed against the techs’ legs. “But that’s enough about me-ow, what about you guys?”  
Sound Guy tapped on his phone. “This. This here. KBCW. Is this about you? I thought it was all photoshop, but…”  
“Pfft, Ronaldo’s blog?! I didn’t think anyone actually read that! He’s gonna freak when we tell him he has a fan.” Jenny started texting.  
“Keep Beach City Weird is an ironic representation of our daily lives,” Buck said. “It’s funny because it’s true.”  
Sound Guy scrolled down, and down again. “So this here, this is uh--Amethyst, you said? Lassoing a giant hand from space?”  
“Sounds like something I would do, sure.” She jumped up onto his shoulder, still in cat form.  
“And this--”  
“Yup, that’s when I turned into a giant five-eyed lady with my BFF and Pearl made me bash my own head in with my hammer-whip thing. Good times. Hey, there’s Sadie! Guess Lars was taking the video.”  
“Oh my gosh. I have to tell my D&D group. We just go on to make fun of the editing skills, but if it’s real--oh my gosh. When are you coming back here tomorrow? They have to meet you.”  
“We’ll probably be helping fix up the stage most of the day, so I guess just drop by whenever.” Greg scratched his head, glancing at the hole by the curtain. “Tonight was… great… but I can’t handle that much excitement two nights in a row.”  
Before the two techs left, Lights made friends with Sadie (“Yeah, my name’s Kenzie. So what’s your favorite movie? No way! The one where they recolored it and the blood’s like, purple? It’s so bad it’s hilarious! Love it!”) and offered a sleepover for the band on the couches in her basement, free of charge.   
“I can get us a hotel for the night,” Greg said. “You guys deserve it.”  
“Nah, this sounds cool.” Sour Cream popped out one earbud. “Plus Amethyst is coming, so even if she’s a psychopath, we’ll be fine.”  
“I… hadn’t thought about that.” Greg blinked. “Um, I think we should definitely get a room at a reputable establishment.”  
“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Universe,” Sadie said. “This is actually probably less dangerous than an average day at the doughnut shop, when Steven’s in town. None of us have gotten absorbed into aliens yet.”  
“And I promise I’ll be a good gem-mom and stay up watching them in a super creepy way all night.” Amethyst smirked at Pearl.  
“Well, all right, but call me if you need anything. Really.”  
They headed off towards Kenzie’s townhouse half a mile south, and Pearl got in the van with Greg.  
He leaned his chair back and groaned.   
“Is there a problem, my Um Greg?”  
“Just really, really tired. I’m good sleeping in the van, but if you want a room somewhere, we got the cash. I think you liked that one ritzy place last time we were here.”  
Pearl had lost track of most of the references people had been making for the past forty-five minutes, so she just shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. The van is fine.”

She kept half-expecting the Diamonds’ Pearls to show up, but the parking lot stayed empty. So, she perused more of the books in her storage by gem-light, meditated to the sound of the periodic rush of cars, and figured out how to charge Greg’s phone using her own gem’s electromagnetic field. And she very consciously determined to not watch him sleep. The last two weeks as she’d done it, it had felt like a sort of ritual. If she didn’t perform it, something bad would happen to him, and if she did, her faithful observation would be a talisman, keeping him safe. It was ridiculous. If she was going to be her own gem, she needed to be completely in control of herself. Quietly, she hummed to herself, watching the streetlights flickering. It felt like it should have words, though, so even more quietly, she sang them.  
“I think I  
Can see it  
Imagine  
I find  
The life I  
Would make from  
The dream I  
Designed  
And with him  
Or without  
Inspiring  
Alive  
With passion  
And vision  
Arrive  
At realizations of  
Goals that I’ve planned   
With power and energy  
For my demand  
For worlds that   
Are better   
And people   
That see

Because I   
Did something  
Because I   
Was me

Imagine  
The one I  
Can be.”


	11. Because Universal Healthcare Would Be Great

The next day, Greg broke his arm.  
He was next to the scene of the curtain catastrophe, scratching his head, when a metal bar hanging high on the wall creaked and fell on him.  
She was down at his side as fast as light, but the damage was done, and he was moaning and cradling his arm.  
“Amethyst, make your phone navigate us to the nearest human healers.”  
“Uh…”  
Sadie handed her phone to Pearl. “There’s an Urgent Care across the street. You can call Buck when he’s in.”  
“No thanks! I’m rich, but not that rich! Just pull out that first aid kit, Pearl. You fixed my leg--well I guess that was Steven, but you helped me set it--just--it’s not that bad, okay?”  
Sadie looked doubtful, but Greg seemed fairly confident as he swallowed six ibuprofen tablets.  
“Doctors are good people, and you should always get professional medical care when you need it,” he told the band gathered around him. “But I know what I’m doing. More importantly, I don’t have health insurance. Okay, Pearl! Grab some laughing gas and let’s do this!”  
She and Buck helped him downstairs to the changing room with the long table in it. Buck found a few suspiciously-stained pillows for under his head and arm, and Pearl dug into her gem. She did, in fact, have several medical texts and a tank of nitrous oxide with a mask, and her first aid kit was equipped with the basics for splinting a broken arm.   
“Do you have a 3D printer in there?” Buck asked. “I was reading this article about how you can print your own waterproof cast. They’re cutting edge, really new to the scene.”  
She did not, but she’d certainly find one as soon as possible. Still, they set to work.  
It quickly became obvious that they were not trained professionals.  
Between Pearl’s surprise that there were two bones in the forearm and Buck’s guess that they should just give him the laughing gas “until he looked kinda dead,” even Greg eventually admitted that maybe the Urgent Care was a better idea.  
Amethyst happily morphed into a miniature purple ambulance and drove him the block to the office, Pearl running alongside. Amethyst’s terrible siren impersonation did, at least, clear the sidewalk for them.  
The visit went relatively smoothly. The gems waited in the lobby until Greg had finished the paperwork and gone through a set of flapping doors with a nurse.  
Amethyst was making faces at the fish in the aquarium when Pearl finally jumped out of her chair and stomped to her.  
“How can you be doing that at a time like this?”  
“Uh, how could I not be doing this right now? Do you see these lil fish lips?”  
“My Universe is damaged and alone with strangers! He’s in grave danger!”  
“Did you just say ‘grave danger?’ First off, people only say that in really bad movies. And second, he’s fine. This place is literally made to fix humans when they break.”  
Pearl paused. “So—it’s like the Reef, for Pearls?”  
“Uh, sure. I mean, I guess it’s got fish?”  
Pearl spent the next hour trying to explain the Reef to Amethyst, and Amethyst spent the hour ignoring her. At some point, she shifted into a purple clownfish and jumped into the tank. A curly-haired toddler lurking behind a chair ran up, cackling and pointing. Amethyst’s fish face grinned, and she did some tricks, spinning in a corkscrew that made the other fish dart to hiding spots in the rocks. The toddler laughed so hard he fell over.  
“Blmblp,” Amethyst said from the tank. She flopped out of the water and switched back to her usual form. “Hey dude, you okay?”  
He fixed his eyes on her gem, and reached his stumpy fingers toward it.   
“Uh.” She let him touch it. “That’s a little awkward, buddy.”   
He climbed up and smeared his hands all over the gem. The woman with the wrinkled forehead who might have been his mother sat a few chairs down, talking on the phone and peering at an insurance card.  
“Guess we’re on our own. Hey little man, wanna see something?” Amethyst wiggled a finger at his face until he looked at her. “You ready for this? It’s gonna blow your tiny mind.” She turned her finger into a yo-yo. He grabbed it. “No no, dude—aw, fine.”  
A nurse appeared at the door. “Family of Greg Universe?”  
“Eh, go ahead, P,” Amethyst said. She shifted her other hand into an airplane, and the boy giggled and blew raspberries. “I’m busy.”  
Pearl followed the nurse to Greg’s room. He lie on a bed, arm wrapped and tucked in a blue sling.  
“The anesthetic will wear off fully in about fifteen minutes, but you can stay with him. We’ll let you all check out once we’ve run his vitals once more and given you both discharge instructions.”  
She smiled and left Pearl and Greg alone.  
Greg’s head lolled to the side. He stared at Pearl, tears glistening in his eyes.  
“My Universe! Are you in pain?”  
“No, I just--I really love you, ya know? You’re Steven’s mom, ya know? I mean, one of them. He has a lot of moms. Rose, and me, and Garnet, and Amethyst, and you… Oh wait, I’m his dad. It’s good he had you around growing up, and it’s good I have you around now. I just love all of you so much! I wanna… I wanna be a gem, but I don’t have a gem. But I have you, and I don’t like it.”  
“You don’t like...having...me? What do you mean?”  
He looked back up at the ceiling. “I’m not smart or beautiful or interesting or good at stuff like Rose, but you look at me like you look at Rose. But not because you like me, just because you have to. And you talk about me like I’m special, but I’m just normal. It’s just… you wouldn’t talk like that if you were your old self, and I think I kind of like someone saying I’m special, but I don’t like liking it, especially when you don’t really mean it.”  
“But I do mean it! Pearls are predisposed to see our owner’s positive qualities, of course, but my acknowledgement of them is sincere!”   
“Eh. It’s fine. I still love you guys. I know what I am, and what I’m not. I just need to stop being used to you being nice to me all the time. You’re going to go be your own gem soon, like you were before, and I’ll go back to being normal Greg, not the Greg someone thinks is special, and it’ll be okay. I like being normal Greg.”  
Pearl felt a tightening in her chest, and a wash of guilt. Yesterday she’d been really thinking about freeing herself, being an independent gem, and look where that had led. Greg had a broken bone, and she was going to take her attention and affection away from him, something that had been making him happy, just because she thought she mattered as much as he did. What sort of Pearl would do that? A selfish, arrogant, defective one. The crack in the glass inside her was still there, but she sealed it, ten times over. She was unacceptable. She must have been manipulating him, somehow, for him to suggest she should own herself. Earth was ruining them. She needed to be fixed.  
“When we return to Beach City, you need to take me to the Reef.”  
“Delmarva doesn’t have a reef. We just have seaweed and really good crabs. I guess the bay has dolphins and sharks sometimes. And horseshoe crabs. They look scary and spiky, kinda like you from before, sometimes, but they’re just ancient sea life that gets stuck on their backs on the beach.” He gasped and sat up. “Pearl, you’re a horseshoe crab! I just gotta flip you over like a horseshoe crab! Why didn’t we try that already? I’ll just flip you over with your spiky tail--eh, guess your nose is the next best thing--and then you can go back in the ocean and be a happy horseshoe crab. Wow. Epiphany. I gotta break my arm more often.”  
“Ah, no, my Universe, the Reef, where Pearls are made. We can warp there. I’d go myself and spare you the trouble, but your authentication will be required.”   
“Oh. Okay. We can go there too. I’m still flipping you with your nose when I can move both my arms, okay?”  
“If you wish, my Universe.”

He steadily gained lucidity, and within the hour, he was back on the stage, pointing Pearl and Amethyst to the parts of the structure that looked risky. It had been unanimously decided that the place was too dangerous for humans, and Pearl didn’t mind showing off as she performed unnecessary acrobatics to do simple tasks. Amethyst rolled her eyes a few times, but a Pearl’s job was reflecting her owner’s magnificence. She even enjoyed herself, though that was, of course, irrelevant. Shoving aside the thought of her feelings, she jumped down from the rafters after the last repair and bowed for Sound Guy’s D&D group. Amethyst shapeshifted into a purple Pearl and mock-bowed too.  
The D&D group was impressed.

The second showing was packed. The house was at the brink of fire safety rules (Pearl knew; she’d checked). Sadie had decided that the show could use a little pre-planned stagehand action after the previous success, so she and Pearl had choreographed some acrobatic scenery changes that made full use of her skills. Jenny sketched out a different outfit for Pearl, suggesting colors that would somehow both match the zombie vibe and Pearl’s pastel mandate, and Pearl readily changed her form, especially since it meant no pants.  
Her eyes were on Greg the whole time, though, to no one’s surprise but his. “It’s only one bone. This kind of thing doesn’t even need surgery, just a few weeks with a cast, and not even that, once we get home to Steven.”  
“But it only happened at all because I wasn’t adequately engaged as your Pearl.”  
“I thought you were getting over that! It’s no one’s fault. Just bad luck. I should make up a cool story about the daring adventure that got me this one, though. ‘A pipe fell on me’ is kinda lame.”  
She didn't respond.  
The performance had a few rough patches, like when Amethyst accidentally flung her sticks into the audience and had to shapeshift her hands into new ones for the rest of the show, but it went dramatically better than the previous night. Pearl's graceful set changes were an applauded part of the performance itself, and Greg sat carefully in a chair on a particularly sturdy patch of floor the whole time.

Afterwards, all their gear slipped back into Pearl's gem, and they crammed themselves into the van for another overnight drive.  
Everyone but Pearl and Greg was asleep in minutes. They drove in silence until they reached the interstate.  
"So… Did I say anything funny while I was doped up on laughing gas?"  
"You said I was a horseshoe crab and you were going to flip me over."  
"I what?! Oh boy. But you have been around for a really long time and haven't changed that much, and you're pretty pointy… you like water… wow, I was right. I guess you are a horseshoe crab."  
"Yes, lovely, thank you."  
"Aww, you know I'm kidding. Mostly." Greg propped his feet up on the dashboard, left arm draped over his chest in a sling. His right hand beat a rhythm on the door. "Anything else worth mentioning? Anything embarrassing?"  
"Of course not, my Universe. Nothing you say would be embarrassing."  
He peered at her. "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not."  
"I'm not."  
"That doesn't help."  
"Good Pearls are either sincere or silent."  
"Aren't you… kind of moving away from that? Y'know, working on being an independent gem and all that?"  
She chewed her lip and watched the road. Consciously, he seemed to want her to be independent. But at least some part of his subconscious enjoyed her attention as his Pearl. A pair of glowing eyes flashed at the side of the road and she gasped and squeezed the wheel. Just a deer. And hopefully a distraction for Greg.  
Fortune favored her, this time.  
"Whoa, was that a deer? Careful. One of those totaled my mom's car one time."  
"Your mom?"  
"Ehhh… We never got along. I haven't talked to her since… ooh boy, before I met Rose. Heck, before I met Marty. She always wanted to control everything I did. It was the worst."  
He frowned out the window for a while. "I won't do that to you, Pearl. I don't want to be my parents. I want to be me, and I want you to be you, like that song said when I was a fusion. Independent together."  
Pearl glanced at his wrapped arm. "Yes, I understand."  
"Kinda sounds like maybe you don't."  
Pearl shook her head, splitting her gaze between the curving road and the forests bordering it. "I do, but I also see the consequences of denying my predestined role. You're wise and kind, and I need to help you."  
"You can help me and still do your own thing, you know."  
"Not wholeheartedly and single-mindedly, the way I should."  
Greg sighed. "Yeah, that's how you were with Rose. She tried to get you to be your own gem, too, and I guess you definitely did some crazy stuff, but…" He sighed again. "If she couldn't do it, I dunno how I'm going to."  
Pearl wasn't sure if she should feel guilty about disappointing Greg or proud that she had always been a loyal servant, so she kept ignoring her feelings like a good Pearl and drove on in silence for a few minutes. But the feelings grew, and with them that yearning from before.  
"I still want to learn. About everything," she said eventually. "How to play music with Earth instruments, what the biomes here feel like, what minerals exist in the nearest star system, the human history of this planet… I showed Amethyst a sculpture garden in Empire City, one I'd learned about from the radio, and..." Time to confess. "It felt fulfilling? Enlivening? A feeling the database doesn't name. Like sharing what I'd discovered could somehow energize my gem, which is absurd."  
"That sounds like something you better keep going after." Greg grinned at her. "You can't change the world if you're just doing what people tell you. If something feels like that, do it! That's how I became Mr. Universe."  
"But my wishes don't align with your purpose."  
"Sure they do. I want to inspire people, you want to inspire people. I just want to do it with music, and you're going to do it with education."  
“Hmm.” She wasn’t convinced, but… It was an interesting perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once, I went on a date that ended up in the emergency room. Also, the 3D printed waterproof cast is a cool idea. Also also, my kids would 100% adore Amethyst irl.


	12. Back to Beach City

Greg woke up once during the drive for painkillers, but it wasn't until everyone piled out at the Big Donut that he was really alert again.  
"Wow, kiddos! This was an incredible weekend! I'm proud of you. You really did something great for Beach City. Grab your instruments from Pearl, and I'll see you at practice!"  
Pearl gracefully distributed instruments, and watched Greg pull each of the kids aside individually before they left, offering a hug or a fist bump and a quick motivational speech. They went their separate ways, and Greg got back in the passenger seat.   
“Welp, now I just have hours of paperwork to handle. After we go see Steven. You got any plans now that we’re back, Amethyst? Pearl?”  
"Yeah, I'm headed to Little Homeworld. Gonna check up on the newbies, see if Peri got any leads on where that injector came from."  
"Yeesh, I almost forgot. Keep me updated on that, all right?"  
Amethyst sprawled out across the back seat and lazily saluted.  
"Okay, so what about you, Pearl? I'm not gonna be any fun until I finish all the accounting. Yech."  
Pearl started the van and checked all the mirrors. Safe to enter the newly-repaired road. “The other Pearls want to resume our nightly meetings, but that leaves me all of your waking hours to serve you, my Universe."  
"Like I said, I'm just doing boring stuff. You're free to, I dunno, go to the library or go exploring or something."  
Pearl nodded, but didn't look at him. It certainly didn't seem like the revitalizing effort needed her. Trees, bushes, flowers, squirrels, seagulls--so many seagulls--and humans swarmed the place. Quartzes worked in synchronized teams, nailing shingles onto roofs or hammering up freshly built shop signs. Few and slight were any traces of the veins of poison that had destroyed the town sixteen days ago.  
Steven was waiting on the front porch with Connie when they parked on the beach. He leaped over the rail and floated down as soon as Pearl opened her door.  
"Dad! Let me fix your arm! Sadie caught me up on everything--" he kissed Greg's forehead. "And it sounds like it was insane!"  
Greg tossed off the sling and unwrapped the bandage, stretching his arm like it had never fractured. "Oh man, that feels so much better. Thanks, son. Let me just tell you, I don't care if The Philosophers come out of retirement and want us to open for them, we're never going to that venue again. It's gotta be cursed."  
"Yeah dude, it was awesome," Amethyst interrupted. "I mean, people could've died, but like, there was some masterful chewed gum art backstage."  
Connie giggled. "That's disgusting. And unsanitary. But Pearl! I saw the part where you completely rebuilt those electronics during the middle of the show! That was amazing!"  
Pearl smirked and bowed. "Why, thank you. It was certainly an unprecedented feat. What will Peridot think?"  
Grinning, Steven pulled out his phone and held up a picture on it. "We were hanging out talking about… things," he dimmed, but brightened up quickly. "When Sour Cream sent me the link to that video! So I got it up on the TV, and Peridot's face--" He snorted, and Connie started giggling so hard she turned red.  
"Oh my gosh, does she know you took that? I'm totally gonna show the famethyst."  
"Yeah, Lapis made it her new wallpaper."  
Their chat turned to what Little Homeworld had been up to over the weekend, Connie's collaboration on a local disaster prevention and relief organization with Mayor Nanefua, Steven's latest recipe experiment, and the food trucks working with the restaurants in town.   
Things felt both calm and energetic, peace with purpose. The humans, and Amethyst, all left together for lunch, but Pearl decided to stay behind to clean up the mess the house had become.   
It wasn't until she was alone picking up scattered garbage and sweeping up crumbs that she realized Greg had been an afterthought. A sort of "oh, and Greg won't need me," added to her own thought process by habit after she'd first decided for herself that she wanted to make the place clean. It came with a flood of emotions: freedom, terror, guilt, shock, shame. She groped for the sponge in the sink and started on the dishes, but the feelings didn't leave. If anything, the guilt intensified the longer she tried to ignore it. What was she doing? Reprogramming herself? Whatever it was, it was immoral and a crime against everything she was made for. Had she really thought that her feelings and desires superseded her duty to Greg? To her Um Greg Universe? She was reprehensible. She shouldn't be allowed to serve him. Or maybe even to exist at all.  
A plate broke under her scrubbing. A splintery crack, with tiny shards floating in the soapy water. She stared at it for a minute. She knew a place she could get a new one. There was a store in town. And she knew a place Greg could get a new Pearl. 

She had to wait until he returned from lunch (the house was spotless), and then he wanted to do inventory, and she ended up taking over his accounting duties while he experimented with a chord progression on his guitar. It was after dinner by the time she managed to find an opportunity to talk.  
She'd mended his blanket the previous week, and he spread it over the sand. He flopped onto it and sighed, hair everywhere. One hand patted the blanket, a sign for Pearl to come sit. In proper Pearl position, she knelt on the edge of the blanket, hands folded.  
"No no, lay down," Greg said, turning his head to look at her. "You gotta see the stars."  
She obeyed, though she hated being on her back. But he was right. The stars were worth it. The view of the galaxy from earth was clouded and blurry, nothing like the images she'd come with, showing the diamond-like clarity of the suns and worlds scattered through space. The imperfection gave it an artistic emotionality, like the sky was telling stories instead of demonstrating facts of astronomy. It was beautiful.  
They were quiet for a while. But Pearl needed to talk to him.  
“My Universe?”  
“You talking to me, or just thinking about existence?”  
“You.”  
“Kay, shoot.”  
“Uh… I was just hoping you could accompany me to the Reef soon.”  
“The Reef? Is that a gem place?”  
“It’s where Pearls are created and modified. We’ll need to warp there.”  
“Sure, I guess we can. Nothing urgent coming up.”  
“Thank you. I suppose you’ll need sleep soon, but perhaps after your breakfast in the morning?”  
“Yeah, sure. What do you want to do there, anyway?”  
“A few updates. Shell must have a more current universal knowledge base to add to mine, if I really am eight thousand years out of date.” None of that was exactly a lie. Being reset would include being outfitted with the latest programming and databases.  
“Okay, sounds good. Anything else you want to talk about?”  
Pearl shook her head. She was trying to prepare herself for the Reef. Whether Shell simply reset her or found her self-modding so corrupt that she was dissolved, it was going to change everything. And probably hurt.   
As soon as she heard Blue’s laugh on the other side of the beach, she shot to her feet. Greg groaned and sat up.  
“What is it?  
“I forgot about the Pearls. We’ll go the forest.”  
“Nah, it’s fine, I’m not tired yet. It’d be nice to catch up, if you don’t all have Pearl secrets I’m not allowed to know.” Greg laughed, and Pearl attempted a sour smile.  
The trio crossed the beach and stood in front of the blanket. Pearl couldn’t quite decide what face to make. It was… nice to see them again, but if Greg mentioned the Reef, and they got the right idea, things could go horribly wrong.  
“Greg, hello.” Yellow stuck out a hand. Greg shook it.  
“Yellow, nice to see you. How’s the broadcast going?”  
“Very well, thank you. Broadcasting Worldswide is achieving record views and programming requests, in fact.”  
“How was the performance?” Pink asked, kneeling on the blanket with him.  
“Chaotic!” Greg laughed. “But pretty awesome. You should’ve seen Pearl! She totally saved the show the first night, and invented a whole gymnastic routine for stage work, and she did all the driving—you Pearls are unbelievable, let me tell you.”  
“We’re made that way. Rainbow has always been exceptional, though.” Yellow patted her head, and Pearl covered her face in embarrassment.   
“Well I’m glad it went well! We missed you.” Pink hopped up, wrapped both arms around Pearl, and didn’t let go. It was mentally uncomfortable, but physically pleasant.  
“Hey Pearl!” Greg said, and all four turned to him. He scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, you know. Just… that one. You should tell them about the thing you want to do!”  
“You want something?” Blue came out from behind Yellow, where she’d been avoiding Greg. “Something that isn’t about him?”  
Pearl ducked her head and tightened her posture. They were going to mock her, after her determination to never change, her insistence that servitude was the only proper desire. If only they could talk about this tomorrow, when she wouldn’t still feel so conflicted about it. When, actually, she wouldn’t be thinking about it at all. “Well. Yes. A bit. I just thought it might be a worthwhile addition to my continued service to Um Greg, if I were to expand my knowledge about things and perhaps… Teach. It’s silly, honestly, a whim if anything, and I really shouldn’t—“  
“That’s wonderful!” And surprisingly, it was Blue, not Pink, who jumped over enthusiastically. “Something you love to do, just because you find meaning in it. It makes existence worth even more, doesn’t it? Instead of simply surviving, to have a purpose? To have joy?”  
“I… Suppose?”  
“Ah, that’s how I feel about being in the spotlight." Yellow twirled in the sparse light of the moon. "Feeling like you’re doing something that matters—I know it sounds narcissistic, but I do think seeing something beautiful elevates the thoughts, and for gems, seeing a Pearl, out in the open, commanding their attention without anyone commanding her—it inspires them.”  
Greg nudged Pearl, under one of Pink’s arms. He waggled his eyebrows. “See? Knew they’d appreciate it. Oh, and guess what? Pearl’s doing something about it tomorrow! We’re headed to the Reef in the morning. She says she can get an update or something? Should give her a boost on learning everything, huh?”  
Blue and Yellow froze.  
Pink nodded, though. “Oh yes! Pink Diamond used to take me to the Reef all the time for new things, or to fix glitches. You’ll love it!”  
“It’s… also where Pearls go for advanced repercussions. If an owner can’t discipline their Pearl properly, they’ll go there to have her… cleaned.”  
“Repaired.”  
“Rejuvenated.”  
“A memory wipe and reprogramming from scratch. It’s unpleasant. Never happened to me, but Yellow Diamond took me to watch it done once.”  
“And if the cleaning doesn’t work, there’s a procedure for disintegration and replacement.”  
“That’s not why you’re going, though, right, Rainbow? Just for the facts and figures update?” Pink smiled and hugged her a little tighter.  
“Of course, just the update. Why would I do differently? That would be ridiculous.” Pearl's smile was possibly slightly manic.  
“Hmm.” Blue moved her hair to look out at Pearl. She turned to Um Greg. “We’re coming with you.”  
“I ag—“ Yellow was interrupted by an insistent chiming from her gem. She rolled her eyes and sat on the van’s bumper, crossing her legs.  
A gold-tinted screen popped out of her gem with Yellow Diamond squinting out of it. She sat back and smiled triumphantly when her former Pearl raised an eyebrow at her.   
“I knew I could figure this out. Pearl, we need you and Blue’s…that is, Blue Pearl at Homeworld. Blue and I have an urgent announcement to share about a new program to integrate off-colors.”  
“I see.”  
“So…?”  
Yellow Pearl blinked slowly.  
“Oh, right. Would you please give us some broadcasting help?”  
“Yes, we should be able to fit it into our schedule. I’ll alert you when we’re on our way.”  
Yellow Diamond nodded once. “That will be all—ah, that is, yes, thank you. I look forward to working with you.”  
The screen vanished in a light fizzle of particles, and Yellow snickered. Blue bumped her knee, grinning.  
“I know! Ahh, that never stops amusing me,” Yellow sighed. “Greg, to be honest, we’re worried that Rainbow’s lying.”  
“We wouldn’t say anything if it would be better for her.”  
“We didn’t say anything last era, when we found out she was staging a rebellion for Earth—that should show you something about Pearl sisterhood.”  
“And we would rather come along, but…”  
“We really need to support any goodness the Diamonds are attempting.”  
“They need an awful lot of validation, or they slip back into old habits. Anyway, we’re not saying you shouldn’t go to the Reef—”  
“I am. Don’t go.”  
Blue elbowed her. “Just… wait for us. We’ll come with you.”  
They left, and Pink made an excuse about being scheduled to help her Chalcedony friends with some electrical work in town (she could crawl in the ducts that they could barely squeeze an arm into).  
Greg stared at Pearl. She smiled and laughed and flapped a hand.  
“Don’t worry. They’re overreacting. It’ll be a very useful update. I’ll finally be able to tell you about the latest gem technology! The nearest solar systems!”  
He opened his mouth, and she could tell by the wrinkle between his eyebrows that he was going to argue.  
So she raised a finger. “And, I suspect I’ll acquire information about the bio poison and its possible origins. It could be extremely vital in our work to prevent further danger to Steven.”  
He shut his mouth and frowned. She was winning.  
“Besides, you still have every standard method of controlling a Pearl. You can force me to do anything you want.”  
And she knew that one would finish him. He and his passion for “independence” and “freedom” wouldn’t let him take away her choice to visit the Reef now.  
He swallowed, chewed on his lip, and finally sat heavily on the blanket. “I really hope I don’t regret this. Okay, Pearl. I’m trusting you here, but we’re still going to wait and go with the others.”  
A little jab of shame scratched at her gem, but she ignored it. “Thank you! I very much look forward to our trip.”


	13. An Unexpected Backstory

The Reef’s warp chimed their arrival, echoing through the vast, empty lobby. Pearl took a deep breath, inhaling a peculiar aroma of mineral-rich water and salt. Unexpectedly, the hint of a memory came with it: of some massive form waiting here, of a Moonstone, pale and anxious, squinting at her critically, tapping something on a screen that lanced her with a shock of electricity, of condensing into her gem, suspended in a semi-solid hologram…  
Greg waited, fairly familiar with people zoning out into traumatic memories. After a minute, Pearl blinked and looked around. The place was pristine. And deserted. Even the Moonstones were gone. But otherwise, it was much the same as she’d seen in the flash of memory: the relaxing atmosphere, all the teals, the pastel Diamond art, the elegant columns and water features, the pedestal—the patterned walls and ceiling were new; it seemed the Moonstones had picked up some fresh motifs since her days here.   
Yellow stood in place, rigid and frowning, but Blue circled the circumference, skimming her fingers along the wall and over the iridescent doors.  
Meanwhile, Greg wandered to the pedestal. Pearl hurried behind him.   
“Just place your hand on it,” she told him. He did.  
“Welcome to the Reef! Please state your name.” The disembodied voice came from everywhere. Greg scanned the ceiling for hidden cameras, but there was too much decorative architecture.  
“Greg Universe,” he said, very deliberately.  
“I’m sorry, I have no Pearl owners listed by that name in my records. Please state your name.”  
He sighed. “Um Greg Universe.”  
“Welcome, Um Greg Universe! How may I help you?”  
“Uh, an update? For Pearl?”  
“Certainly! Please follow the illuminated orbs, and feel free to enjoy the selection of luxury accessories available for our Pearls as you approach the programming chamber!”  
Greg tapped an orb with his flip flop. “These aren’t gonna vaporize me or something, right?”  
“Of course not, Um Greg Universe! We employ defensive measures only for your protection.”  
“Heh… That’s… reassuring.”  
He followed the lights, craning his neck to see every corner of the Reef. Pearl crossed her hands and stepped in his steps, odd clips of memories springing from everything she saw here. Or maybe mostly from the smell. Something about the particular scent of synthesized saltwater and imported gem care products brought on a wave of nostalgia that felt like stress. She knew the bones of this place, somehow. Not the new displays, or the new decorations, but she knew about the workers’ passage with the private door hidden behind that column, the catwalks camouflaged into the domed ceiling, the routes she would’ve assigned Moonstones to follow, the foldout control panel she would have used to update logs for White Diamond.  
She took in a shaky breath. Unearthing even more past lives was not her purpose today.  
The programming chamber was spacious enough to fit a Diamond, with a digital panel spanning an entire wall and a metal clamshell in the corner, the size of a Pearl. Like the rest of the building, the colors were deep and soothing, though someone had made a questionable design decision in the mud-themed flooring. It may have been appropriate, but it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, Pearl thought.  
Shell’s voice filled the room. “Greetings! What updates and functions can I perform for our Pearl today?”  
Um Greg shrugged, trying to find the source of the voice again. “I guess the newest one?”  
“Current data on locations, personnel, entertainment routines, general skills, and a base reset,” Pearl said, hoping that if she was nonchalant enough, they wouldn’t actually notice what she’d said.  
“You have selected base reset. Are you sure you want to permanently wipe this Pearl’s memory and return to her previous default settings?”  
“What? No!” Um Greg shouted, while Pearl screeched a “Yes!”  
“Reset cancelled. Please select your desired updates when you’re ready.”  
Greg grabbed Pearl’s shoulders. “What the heck?! What were you thinking? What are you doing?!”  
“We told you—“  
“Rainbow, stop!”  
Pearl plunged her hands into the digital wall. She was going to do this. He deserved a real Pearl, whether or not anyone liked it. The program update options scrolled across her vision, and she sped to the end and mentally prepared her gem to let the program overwrite her latest version. A trickle of electricity flickered through her fingers and traveled up her arm, arcing through her form and concentrating at her gem. She kept her grip on the core of energy in the screen, but this was destroying her, quite literally. Pressure built in fissures between her particles, burning with foreign, familiar fire. Cleansing fire, she convinced herself as she shook and held on tighter. This would pass. She wouldn’t even remember this in ten minutes. Right now, though, it was searing cracks into her. Pouring hot plasma down her veins, filling her energy paths with stabbing bolts of electricity. Greg was pulling on her, but his meaty human arms were nothing compared to the strength of a gem, or even a Pearl, with a purpose, and Pearl mentally recited hers over and over, a mantra to distract herself just enough to get through this. As soon as it dissolved her form, all the energy would flood her gem and burn through the bad code. She wasn’t going to shatter, even if it felt like it. This was only going to kill her, not end her. She could hold on. There wasn’t any other way. Yellow had grabbed her too, and Blue’s presence flavored some of the code she was absorbing, but not even they could stop her at this point.  
“Pearl! I—I—I’m ordering you! Stop it! Stop hurting yourself!”  
She—stopped. Before Greg’s words fully computed in her mind, her hands drew away from the digital stream and she stumbled towards him, his hands tight around her arms. Her gem was too hot—or maybe too cold; she couldn’t tell—and her form ached with aftershocks, half numb and half over-sensitive to everything.   
He pulled her in towards him, crushing her in a straightjacket-hug.  
“Pearl, don’t hurt yourself. Just—stop whatever you were doing, and let’s talk about it, okay?”  
She wanted to finish what she’d started, but now her arms felt like they were held in a vice against her body, and a weight as dense as lead had settled inside her gem.   
She’d forgotten what an order was like.   
The heaviness dissipated throughout her form. It had the feel of metal dust clinging to the inside of her, settling like chains to lock away part of her gem. Comfortingly restrictive. Her world was smaller and cleaner now. And colored with Um Greg. She wouldn’t forget about him now, or wave him away as an afterthought. The order’s intimate control wasn’t erasing her new experience-written programs, but it had refreshed her core-level source code. She didn’t even want to reset now. This would be perfect! She’d still know everything about his preferences, but she’d also have all the loyalty and dedication of a devoted new Pearl. A wave of aftershocks prickled through her, but she smiled.


	14. And Now We’re Trapped in a Horror Movie

Those five minutes definitely made it into my collection of least favorite five minutes. Sweat was dripping off me and it was super gross, but Pearl didn’t even seem fazed. She just sat there, smiling, while I held onto her toothpick arm just in case. My hair—at least the part that wasn’t sweat-glued to my neck—puffed out from the static she’d been crawling with that whole time.   
That smile was not encouraging, and I was dreading what was going to come out of her mouth, but we had to talk.  
“So. Wow. Huh. You uh, okay?”  
“Yes, I’m completely prepared to serve you, my Um Greg Universe! Thank you for your concern.”   
Yikes.   
“We were too late,” Blue whispered. She was rubbing her hands—she’d stuck them straight into the weird computer wall once we all realized what Pearl was doing. “We couldn’t…”  
“Ugh, she’s back to this again.” Yellow folded her arms tight against herself. She flicked a glance at me. “I apologize for my failure.”  
I took my hand off her arm. This was really bad. "No, guys. It’s my fault."  
"Oh no, not at all! Your command is in full effect. I was unable to complete the hard reset. But the order reminded me of my initial state and refreshed some of the files that had been corrupted. Now I have all the benefits of my experiences as your Pearl, as well as renewed ability to serve you with full attention!”  
I was probably hearing that wrong. Right? Probably? No way could I have failed that spectacularly. But… just to be sure. "Did you just say that the order I gave to save you from that zapper thing… my order flipped a switch and now you're back to default mode anyway?"  
"Yes, but with all of my memories of the last seventeen days! As always, your strategy was even more perfect than I could have imagined." Another string of static crawled over her, and she twitched.  
I smooshed my face with my hands. Okay. So that had backfired amazingly well. Probably couldn’t have messed this up any better if I’d tried. If I were thinking worst case scenarios, this would've been… well definitely not number one, but probably in the top ten. I was going to have to go back to Beach City with her, and Garnet would be there with her Disappointment (and yeah, it looks a lot like all her other emotions, but you can tell), and Amethyst would leave for a week and come back with another prison jumpsuit, and Steven would start thinking it was his job to fix her and pause his life again for this, when it was really all my fault.  
Should've followed my gut and never given her that order. But what would’ve happened then?  
Okay. I wasn’t a Crystal Gem, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still save the day. Right? Right.   
“So, how do I undo an order?”  
Leaning against a wall, Yellow answered. “Pearls aren’t supposed to know. Rescinding an order isn’t in the handbook.”  
Of course not. “Steven said you just sorta… made up a super convoluted loophole last time, but you wanted it last time. I kinda get the feeling that’s not how it is now.”   
Pearl smiled brightly.   
“Ugh. Maybe that Shell voice thing can help! Hey, Shell!”  
“At your service, Um Greg Universe.”  
It sounded way too much like Pearl. “Uh, okay Shell, I want to take back an order I gave. Heck, while I’m at it, I want to undo a reset from a… what was that thing? A rejuvenation scythe or something?”  
“I’m sorry, but those actions are permanent and cannot be reversed. To troubleshoot our Pearl, consider providing additional orders, or manually adjusting her programming. If neither solution meets your needs, we offer rejuvenation to one prior boot. Reef Moonstones are on-hand if you’d like to request a replacement Pearl.”  
Well, great. Greg screws up again. “Everyone’s going to hate me for this.”  
Pearl pirouetted over, taking to one knee in front of me. “Not at all! I can still perform every function I’ve learned, and as my owner, you’re welcome to assign me to other gems as needed, on a temporary basis.”  
“That wasn’t the problem.”  
“Then what was?”  
I flopped onto the floor. It was cold. “That you don’t even get deja vu from what you just said. It’s like… I dunno, the only thing you could understand is that it’s like losing your owner.” Man, I hated that word. “I knew you for twenty years, and Amethyst and Steven knew you their whole lives, and Garnet… you literally made her who she is. You guys were together during a war, when pretty much everyone you knew got destroyed. I get why she doesn’t like being around you right now, you know? We all were really attached to the old you. So when the Pearl we know gets replaced by some creepy version that’s pretty much the opposite… We were hoping you were getting back to being you. I mean, all that stuff we talked about in the van! When did that change?”  
“When I was cleaning the house.”  
“Cleaning the—what? How does washing some dishes make you have an existential crisis?”  
“I was sweeping.”  
“Are you serious?”  
She nodded, but she wasn’t smiling now. Actually, she wasn’t even looking at me, and she started walking back and forth across the floor.  
Okay, that counted as a good sign. Pearl pacing meant she at least thought something was wrong. But now what? What could I do? I was still just the car wash guy with a guitar. But I did have that guitar. Music solved our problems sometimes, right?  
"Hey, could you pass me my guitar?"  
"Huh? Oh! Yes, here you are, my Universe."  
It was a little chilly from being in her gem, so I warmed the strings with some chords. Hooooo, okay. Come home in glory, or come home with a robot-alien-trophy-wife-slave. I really needed this to work.  
This one had a slow intro, but it would speed up and go major by the chorus. Pearl stood straight in front of me. It was weird seeing her in Jenny’s outfit design. Had to think about normal Pearl for this to work.

“--I missed the you you were  
After you changed  
Before you changed again.  
\--I missed your bass guitar,  
Your confidence,  
How I could be your friend.

But now I think the you you are  
Is not who you wanted to be.  
I think the you that you became  
Will never help you to feel free.  
I only want to help you find  
The you you imagined before  
I’ll do the things that I can do  
To give you the hope you ignore.

So let’s  
Live together with the you you are,  
And  
Work together for the you you’ll be  
And even when the rain  
Leaves a stain  
We’ll make you the you you are.

I wish you’d see what I can see,  
Potential for wonderful things  
In all the thoughts you wave away  
You treat other people like kings  
But your ideas matter too  
We’re together, but we aren’t the same  
No matter what, I’ll show you that  
You’re better off wild than tame.

You’re the  
Rainbow after all the rain has passed  
So  
Don’t go back to being clouds  
You made colors in the dark  
And made your mark  
When you were the you you are.

I get that now you’re happy here,  
The comfort of fitting a mold.  
But ‘easy’ doesn’t change the world  
And you can do more than you’re told.  
If this is where you are right now,  
I’m not gonna leave you alone.  
I’ll be your friend and stay with you,  
But I’ll put you back on your throne.

‘Cause when  
You’re a cloudy day and satisfied  
And  
You don’t think that you should shine  
I’ll be with you there,  
And help you dare  
To be the you you are.”

Pearl had a weird look on her face. I could admit, it wasn’t my best composition ever—definitely not a ten million dollar burger jingle—but I tried. She blinked, and a smile snapped on again. At least her eyes were a little less neutral, whether or not I knew what that meant.  
“Lovely arrangement, my Um Greg.” She clapped. Blue and Yellow just stood, awkwardly.  
One more bolt of electricity shivered through her, and immediately the screen on the other wall flashed pink.  
“Reset interrupted. System failure detected. Authorization required for full operating system restart.”  
The lights turned off.  
She clapped twice. “Lights, please.”  
Nothing happened.  
“Uh, it’s me, Um Greg Universe? Can we get some light?”  
Nothing.   
This was getting creepy, with the waterfall quietly bubbling over by the other wall and a hum next to me where the metal shell thing was powering down. Pearl switched on her forehead light, which half-blinded me when she shone it at my face.  
“My Um Greg? Should we return to the warp?”  
“Uh, yeah. Let’s do that.”  
Well, what was a scary movie without sneaking through the supposedly empty house? What could go wrong?  
… And there we went. I just had to make sure we absolutely, positively did not get split up.  
Eerie was the word for it, the columns with shifting patterns of water and random Pearl stuff. Somehow, Pearl practically floated down the hall—in front of me, thankfully—totally silent.   
I watched the occasional horror flick with Sadie and the kids, and this was way too close to being pulled straight from “Aquatic Alien Visitation.” Any second now, some scaly thing would slither out of the shadows and eat my head. Maybe that would turn Pearl back to normal? Had to admit, I wasn’t sure it would be worth it.  
We reached the warp. Pearl stepped on and pulled me up with her, and her gem light pointed up at the ceiling. Blue and Yellow followed, totally silent. They seemed just as bummed as I was about this whole thing.  
I couldn’t see her face with the light coming out of her forehead, but I felt her take a breath and tense like we were about to teleport. I held onto my guitar for dear life.  
And nothing happened. Again.  
“That should have worked. Maybe a vocal cue? Activate warp! Teleport to Obsidian’s Beach Temple.”  
I could maybe hear wind from outside, but that was it.   
Pearl shut off her light. “I suppose the warp is out of commission until Shell’s reboot completes. It won’t take more than a few hours, once it begins, but it did say it required authorization, and there aren’t any Moonstones here anymore. I’ll have to find the mainframe and hack into it.”  
“Sure. Where do you go to find that?”  
I could only just barely see her face in the blue-ish glow from the walls. She blinked.  
“I don’t know. I’ll find it, though. It can’t be impossible to find. Well, I suppose it could be, because whoever made this place certainly wouldn’t want its systems compromised by unauthorized guests, but I’ll find it! And I’ll fix everything, and it’ll all be fine!”  
Yeah, she was panicking, pacing in a tiny circle on the warp and moving her hands all over the place. Classic Pearl. It was kind of nice. Familiar. But I also felt bad for her, so I put an arm out to pause her frantic little circles.   
“Hey. It’ll be okay. We got time.”  
She did pause, and folded her arms tight. “Yes. Right. Follow me.”  
“While you two do that, Yellow and I have a few things we can try to jumpstart the warp.” Blue pulled some piece of metal out of her gem.   
“Rainbow can’t get any worse, whether or not we’re around,” Yellow muttered. She crouched by the stairs. “Good luck.”


	15. Creepier than a Chocolate Factory

Anxiety prickled up and down Pearl’s spine, for some reason she couldn’t quite remember, and it made her startle at every drip of water or shadow outside the stained windows.   
With her gem light on, she took the lead to the door they’d used earlier. She tested the control pad next to it, but there was no reaction. That left three others, all identical. The left one felt comfortable, her feet taking her there before she'd given any of them thought.  
This door had an earlier version of the hand-scan pad. When Pearl placed her palm on it, gem glyphs flickered above the screen: "Rainbow Pearl 001: access granted."  
The door slid open, and shut with a series of whirring lock mechanisms. Greg gulped behind her.   
Inside was a single, spacious expanse of teal. Artificial stars shone from the ceiling like tiny diamonds, arching over the space that stretched near endlessly in every direction, stacked with floating layers of pools of water. Most were empty, but in a few lie open metallic shells, like the one in the programming chamber. Thick ropes of water snaked around the room, flowing into each pool. With the trickling sound gradually settling her nerves, Pearl followed the course of one rivulet to the wider stream it branched from. It was mesmerizing, the way the stars' light flicked over the lines of the water. So mesmerizing that she leaped halfway to the ceiling when Greg screamed.  
A whizzing cloud of holographic blue darts centered on Greg, shooting around and through him in a swarm of inch-long, ghostly bullets.  
"Sorry, sorry, I'm fine, just uh, a little surprised. These things came out of nowhere and they won't stop following me!"  
Pearl ran to him, but she stopped short of the dart storm. It was buzzing. Out of cautious curiosity, she put a hand into the chaos. One ripped through her palm, burning like acid. Energy poured out of the hole it left, bright red where it exited her form but invisible as it mixed with the air. She shrieked and ran to the nearest pool. Plunging her hand into the water brought instant relief.  
"Pearl! What happened? Are you okay?" The darts still buzzed around Greg, but he seemed unharmed, swatting at them like they were Earth gnats. Wisely, he didn't move towards her.  
She held up her hand.  
"Holy… hole! What on earth?"  
"This room must have traps set for unauthorized life forms. Hopefully they'll all only affect gems, like this one."  
Greg chuckled nervously. "Yeah, that'd be preferable, for me. Is your hand okay?"  
"Oh. Yes. The water isn't healing, but it does seem to seal edges to prevent additional energy loss. I just won’t be able to use that hand until I take a day to rebuild that part of my form." She folded her arms and made a wide circle around Greg, scanning the area. One of the smooth tiles on the floor was depressed.  
"Move five meters forward."  
Greg did. Pearl felt under the lip of the tile adjacent to the lowered one. She hummed in satisfaction when she found a button there, and pressed it. Half a second later, the tile rose to level.   
Without fanfare, the darts fizzled into nothing, and Greg sighed. They both stared at each other for a moment.  
He shouldn’t have come with her. But she couldn’t leave him alone here if the traps would keep coming. Maybe he’d agree to wait with the other Pearls, but first, they had to survive this room.  
"My Universe, please stay still. We need to see if these effects are time or location dependent."  
They waited. One second, safe. Two seconds—  
It came out of the floor again, between the grooves of the tiles towards Greg. A wriggling, teal, leech-like thing the size of his finger whirred through the air with a whistle. Greg stumbled back and yelped, but it latched onto his arm and, despite his thrashing, wouldn’t let go.  
“Greg!” Pearl whipped out her glaive without a thought.   
“I’m okay! It just feels weird!”  
Another one sprang out of the floor, but on its trajectory towards Greg, it intercepted Pearl’s shoulder.  
It did feel weird, but not in a mildly casual way. From the point its metallic jaws clamped onto her skin came a cold, slowly spreading numbness. She tried picking the device off, but where it touched her fingers, they, too, began to freeze. She let go quickly.  
“Here, lemme get that for you,” Greg said, and popped it off with his bare hand. It dropped to the floor, and before it skittered to its feet, he stomped on it. He made a face at the bottom of his flip-flop. “I mean, all the little wires and stuff aren’t as gross as bug guts, but still.”  
“It didn’t affect you? When it attached?”  
“Nope. I think I’m kind of invincible around here.” He pinched another electronic leech off of his neck and stomped that one, too. Pearl sliced the next one in half with her spear, but her entire left arm was incapacitated. The numbness wasn’t spreading, but she couldn’t move her shoulder, and her hand wasn’t getting any less useless.  
“I’m glad you’re safe. I’m—“ she ducked under another leech flying towards Greg. “Going to find the source and shut it off.”  
“Yeah, good plan. I’ll wait here, just squashing robot bugs.”  
There wasn’t an obvious pressure plate this time, so she crouched near where she’d seen two of the leeches emerge. One more crawled out and launched itself past her head. She could hear them further down, scratching under the tiles like a line of mice. Following the sound, she tiptoed down the aisle between sets of floating pools. She’d passed at least three dozen of them, the noise gradually growing, when she finally reached the wall. It curved gently, so the whole room felt vaguely like the inside of a massive egg. Most of it shone smooth and unblemished, but there was a barely perceptible rectangle set into the wall near her elbow. Her spear vanished, and she set her hand on the rectangle. The noise in the floor sped up, approaching her, and somewhere behind the wall, the skittering sound built to a roar of clicks. Her hand trembled, ready for her to snatch it away if the leeches appeared there. But the clicks faded, and the floor quieted.  
“Pearl! They stopped!”  
“Very good. I’ll be right there.”  
She found him surrounded by electronic carnage. He brushed his hands on his pants.  
"Welp, I'm ready to get out of here. Got any clues?"  
Pearl nodded. "I suspect we'll find something useful at the end of the widest stream above us."  
Greg looked up. "Oh, huh. Well, lead the way!"  
“Ah, actually, I thought it might be safer if I escorted you back to the Pearls to wait, and completed this portion of our journey alone.”  
He raised an eyebrow. “Look, not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t trust you. You say you’re not going to try to reset yourself again, but how do I know that?”  
“Because the system is off, for one thing.”  
“Sure, but what about once you turn it on? Plus, these booby traps haven’t hurt me at all.”  
“Yet. Please, my Universe.”  
“Nope. It’s going to be bad enough going back with you like this. They’ll literally murder me if I let you wander around here by yourself and you turn yourself back into that holo-oyster thing or get shattered or something.”  
Pearl did not like this, but arguing with her owner was strongly against her programming, and she was getting a headache.  
Her body was tight and all senses on alert as they continued down the room. She, apparently, wouldn't set off any traps, but Greg… Anything could happen.  
Only a few seconds passed before her paranoia was proven fact. Spiked vines, thrumming with electricity, shot down from above. They wrapped around Greg’s leg and he dropped with a thud.  
"Ohhh, I'm too old for this," he groaned. "Are they supposed to tickle?"  
Pearl was quite positive they were supposed to provide an agonizing disintegration of a gem's form, but he didn't need to hear that, and she didn't want to think about it. These were problematic, however. They sprouted more prehensile vines that crawled rapidly in every direction, with no regard for Greg’s proximity now. She had to jump onto the rim of one of the raised pools and balance there to avoid them.  
They didn’t stop, though, and they were beginning to climb up the walls of the lower pools. She leaped up a few layers.  
“Oh, that’s cool,” Greg said from below. “Check it out! If I just press this button where they connect to each other—“ He pressed it, and one of the creeping tendrils coiled back in.   
“How fast can you do that?” Pearl called down.  
“Uh…”   
He managed a steady beat of one button per two new tendrils popping out. Pearl had no idea if it would work, but she pulled out a spear.  
“Greg, this weapon conducts energy, so I can’t use it in this situation, but perhaps it would help you?” Physical weapons certainly wouldn’t be able to cut through the vines, and he was too slow on his own. She let it fall down near him, and he reached through the vines to grab it.  
“Huh, so this is what it feels like.”  
“Hurry, please.”  
He gracelessly thwacked a vine with the blade. It flashed once, and the tendril disintegrated. He grinned up at her.  
“This’ll be way faster! I bet I’ll keep them from multiplying, at least. Think you can find the thing to shut it off?”  
She glanced around the room. By this point, they carpeted the entire floor, from the door to the lobby to the edge of the pool at the back, and were beginning to creep up the walls. They’d originally spawned from the ceiling, and yes, there was a thick tangle of them centered above Greg.   
This would be difficult. Any angle she could find, balanced on the rims of the middle layers of floating pools, would not be a straight shot to the origin. And she’d need to propel her spear with perfect aim and considerable force, without slipping down into the mess of vines. The balancing wouldn’t be difficult, but muscle memory would only take her so far with her weapon when this was more deliberation than reflex.  
Still, she pulled out a glaive and aimed. It would be so helpful if it could shoot projectiles, lasers, something, but she wasn’t going to be able to figure that out in the next few minutes. So she drew her arm back, shaft tight in her hand, and threw with full force at the center of the mess in the ceiling.  
She slipped, but managed to tumble into the pool instead of down into the plants. At the same time, the glaive hit its mark, embedding in the knot. A few ashy flakes of vines rained down, but three more vines sprouted in their place, and the glaive dropped.  
It landed on Greg.  
“Ow! What’s—oh, thanks, Pearl.” Greg continued chopping at vines, now dual-wielding. “Dunno if it’s any faster, but I look way cooler, right?”  
“Uh…” Pearl climbed out of the saline solution back onto the edge. “...Yes?”  
Really, he looked slightly ridiculous, holding her elegant weapons like they were meat cleavers, but two did look cooler than one.  
“It might be more efficient to find Shell’s access port than for me to keep attempting to shut down this trap,” Pearl called.   
“Okay. I got things here! It’s kind of crazy, but I’m doing it! So I’ll hold down the fort, and I guess you go do the thing?”  
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”  
“Yeah, I got this for a while. I’m gonna try to scoot towards the door. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll escape before you get back! Just—you promise you’ll be okay, right? Promise you’re not gonna try to reset all the way, or get horribly mutilated or killed or anything?”  
“You have my word.”  
Leaping from rim to rim of the pools shouldn’t have been particularly difficult for a Pearl, but her dysfunctional arm skewed her balance. She splashed into the water twice, and toppled over completely once. The surface was only just higher than her head, but it was humiliating.   
The cords of water winding through the air and feeding into each pool got thicker the closer she got to the end of the room, and the electrifying vines got thinner. Ultimately, the vines had stopped replicating entirely, leaving a bare space of floor that dropped into a shallow crescent of water by three stairs. The floating river, it turned out, wound from a waterfall that poured out of the ceiling from some invisible source, and what didn’t divert into the floating river cascaded down into the crescent pool so that water lapped incessantly against the second stair.   
Pearl stepped down. Against her ankles, and then up to her knees, the water stroked in cool ripples. It was sublimely refreshing. She waded in towards the waterfall, a little surprised that the sound of it was so muffled even close by. Strangely muffled, in fact. Suspiciously muffled. She peered at it. The pattern of tumbling water was iterative, repeating every forty seconds, and it tossed no spray onto her face. To really know for sure, she would have to test its physical integrity, however, and she’d certainly seen that things here were not always innocent. But her hand already had a hole she could see through and she couldn’t feel anything from the shoulder down, so that couldn’t really get too much worse. She held it in the waterfall.  
It wasn’t completely artificial. A thin sheet of water slid down teal-tinted glass behind it, but it was primarily a holographic illusion. She dropped her arm and ran her other hand down the glass, water slipping down to her elbow. One finger dipped over a thin crack, and she followed it with her other fingers. It formed a rectangle about the dimensions of a Pearl, and when she pressed hard against it—  
The glass swiveled, pushing her out on the other side. She could see the underside of the fake waterfall behind her. In front of her now was a rough tunnel, moist and dripping, scented with saltwater. Turning on her gem’s light, she crept down the tunnel, hair brushing the damp roof of it. It curved, then curved the other direction, with several offshoots. The floor under her feet was worn smooth, but not made of the marble the rest of the Reef’s interior was. This had clearly been a secret.  
The tunnel shrank gradually, until Pearl could only just squeeze sideways through it. Would she have to shape shift to get out the other side?  
As it turned out, no, she did not. Another sheet of glass blocked the exit, this one tinted white and shimmery. She pressed a hand against it, and again revolved to the other side, where gauzy curtains fluttered in an indoor breeze. The worn trail under her feet continued not through the curtains, but onward behind them, soft fabric brushing her skin on one side and rough rock scraping on the other as she went. The trail ended near a fountain and small side door. Carefully, she peeked into the space beyond.  
She was surprised to find herself surprised that no Moonstones were around. Apparently one of her former selves expected this place to be filled with them; presumably they congregated here during breaks. It did look like it was made for them, with beams of pale light shining through wafer-thin discs that floated like two-dimensional moons. Wherever they struck the walls and floor, patches and veins of opalescence shimmered. Pearl looked at one of the dark slabs, built like benches for gems a little larger than her. Spirals of peach and apricot were inlaid on the sides. Altogether, elegant and ethereal seemed to be the aesthetic aim.   
Architectural admiration aside, Pearl had things to accomplish. She scanned the room for some sort of communication device or control panel. One wall was curiously blank, with none of the windswept silks draped over the rest.  
She started towards it, but as soon as she made a move onto the polished tiles, a barrage of blades shot towards her. She leaped backwards, and immediately had to roll onto the floor to miss the next set of knives whistling out one wall and sinking into the other. A third and fourth rain came in quick succession, shooting down at diagonals from the corners. One nicked her leg. More than a sting, less than a crippling slice, it still distracted her enough that she didn’t sense the gears rumbling until spikes burst through the floor. A heavier gem would have been impaled, but after a screech when they pricked one foot, she slid onto the sloping side of one of the biggest and launched herself up. She grabbed the “moon” suspended in the air with her one working hand and hung for a few seconds, watching the sequence of traps. A flood of water washing from one end of the room, a sudden frigid drop in temperature so it became a solid sea of ice, a round of spiraling dart whirlwinds—sparser than in Greg’s room, but erratic enough to be dangerous. She was just wondering why Moonstones, of all gems, would ignore the upper air space of their abode when her moon flipped onto its side, razors popping out of the edge.   
So now there was a maelstrom of circular saw blades maneuvering insanely through the air.  
Right hand now sliced almost in half and leaking energy, Pearl fell down onto the ice and slid.  
Miraculously, all the way to the control panel wall.  
She set her gashed palm on the sensor to the side. It flashed red gem glyphs: “No Gem Detected.” Well, that was rude, even if it was accurate. She dodged an out-of-control dart and tried again. Same error message, the kind a Pearl would see if she tried to activate a door with fluid energy or objects instead of the hardened light of her hand. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? She couldn’t exactly “dry off” the energy leaking out of her palm, so there was no way for her hand—which might not register properly anyway, given the rip across the center—to make contact with the pad.  
Unless the water in the fountain had the same energy-coagulation properties as the pools in Greg’s room.  
Dancing around spikes, whirlwinds, and the odd moon-shuriken, she made it to where she’d entered, behind the fountain. Some of the traps seemed to be settling down, ice melting into slush at her feet, but now was not the time to drop her guard. She plunged her arm into the fountain’s frigid water.  
It did not, in fact, stop any more energy from draining out, but she touched something at the bottom of the fountain. An orb? Without conscious thought, she turned it twice and tapped the top.  
She dropped through the floor.

It was only a short drop. The ceiling slid smoothly shut over her. She’d landed in a tunnel much like the one before, and much like before, it led to a curtain. This one, though, was a billowing velvet mass of black, with pricks of light glinting off glass scattered all over it like a galaxy. She very, very carefully pushed it aside.  
This room was small. A single white circle set into the floor, a single white pedestal with a tetrahedron embedded in the top. White walls, white ceiling, all within the reach of her arms if she were to stand on the circle in the middle.   
She waited.   
She tapped the circle with one foot.  
She touched the top of the pedestal with one finger.  
Well, if nothing was going to happen, she wouldn’t complain. And the quicker they got out of the Reef, the better. Greg couldn’t keep chopping vines forever.   
She stood in fifth position on the circle. Neither of her hands was going to be much use until she had at least a day or two to absorb enough energy to replenish her form, but hopefully this device would allow voice activation.  
“Rainbow Pearl 001, requesting communication access.”  
A voice echoed around the room. “Identification accepted. Voice activation pass phrase required.”  
Pearl opened her mouth, praying for another past-life moment to conveniently rescue her. The voice from the communicator, the texture of the curtain, the view from the center of the circle, that was all anciently familiar. But nothing new, and nothing helpful, came to mind. She closed her mouth.  
“Access denied. Additional security measures activated.”  
Bright red abruptly began flashing from the lights set into the ceiling. She dashed back into the tunnel behind the curtain, breathing rapidly. No possibility remained that the communicator would let her use any vocal bypasses, and Gem defenses typically stayed on indefinitely, until manually shut down.   
Manually. She could try that.  
She took a stealthy peek behind the curtain. The red light still flashed, but she didn’t see any other active traps—no projectiles, no barbed tentacles, no laser sharks. That was not a good sign. Whatever was in there wasn’t visible.  
With one hand paralyzed and the other now coated in deep light and uncontrollably shaking, she really wasn’t ready. She’d need at least one to physically interface with the communicator, not to mention fend off whatever horror awaited. Even coagulating her energy leaks would take hours on her own, and she doubted she’d be able to fix the deeper problems at all. This should’ve been the perfect place to be a broken Pearl, with an entire wing dedicated to repairs, but everything was either in stasis or actively trying to kill her, unhelpfully.   
In between red flashes, however, she noticed the right wall. The entire surface throbbed with dim light, and a tiny shell icon blinked in one corner. Clearly whatever used to happen in this room was top-secret, and clearly it had something to do with both White Diamond and Shell. And herself, which was… something to think about much, much later. The Diamond communicator would be useless without hands, but if that wall was really Shell’s access point, she could, theoretically, enter it with any part of her form, just as she’d hacked into the programming chamber’s screen.   
She tried sliding her hand past the curtain and against the screen. As soon as it touched the surface, a jolt of electricity briefly connected her to countless seas of information, churning in a giant glass sphere. Mentally, she sensed a hinge, and a lock, but before she could investigate, she swayed and lost focus. Enough energy was leaking from her collection of injuries that she felt it vibrating around her. But at least her concept was plausible. She just needed to concentrate.   
And there was a way to do that. If she linked with her gem directly, it would form a circuit that couldn’t be interrupted by lapses in concentration or energy flow, and she’d be able to instantly exert her will on the program. But conducting it straight through her gem wouldn’t be pleasant. Interfacing with technology never was, but at least with space between her gem and the product, she could configure the input into something her gem could cope with somewhat comfortably. This was going to jam signals down paths they weren’t designed to take, and shove the full force of advanced artificial intelligence into her gem all at once.  
She would get a really bad headache.  
Still, it had to be done. She planned the code in her brain, what she’d have to do to hack into Shell, braced herself for the spiking pain sure to come.  
Plans made, she breathed in, closed her eyes, and moved her forehead towards the screen.   
She stopped a centimeter away. Heat flared at her gem, and an impossible weight shoved her arms against her sides. It squeezed her like a vice, inescapable, and she stumbled against the white pedestal, then fell through the curtain and onto the floor of the tunnel. The precise thoughts she’d organized scattered, and the weight lifted instantly. She didn’t move. Four slow breaths, reteaching herself how her chest could expand and contract.  
She’d forgotten about the order. She couldn’t even attempt to do something she knew would hurt herself, because that’s what Greg had wanted. And it would be that way as long as the order was in place, which was… forever, as long as he was her owner.  
A voice, loud despite the curtain and nothing like Shell’s, echoed from the room. “White Diamond security protocol level two commencing. One unauthorized gem in form detected. Zero percent location accuracy. Overriding all existing systems. Engaging total facility lockdown and defensive retractable missile, shield, and laser activation until gem is detected unformed.”  
The whole place would be ablaze with weapons until her form dissolved. The entire Reef. The lobby, where Blue and Yellow were. And the room Greg was trapped in.  
But she couldn’t let herself be poofed until she got the warp running. Humans couldn’t survive without food and water, and while only a little of the water here was saline, there certainly wasn’t anything edible. Greg wouldn’t last long even if he managed to escape his room of vines before he ran out of strength. And there was no guarantee any of them would even be able to get the warp started at all, ever, without the manual reboot she was attempting.  
There wasn’t much choice. She needed to authorize Shell’s reboot.  
Pearl ran through the curtain. This room had only one physical defense, a long cord with a pincer on the end that was wildly swinging through the air. She pulled a spear out of her gem, dropped it a few times as her hand glitched while dodging the pincer, but eventually snagged the cord around her spear and jammed it into the floor.   
“That wasn’t the only defense,” something whispered in her ear. “This is White Diamond’s. You shouldn’t be here.”  
Pearl searched the room, felt all over herself, but whatever was echoing in her mind was nowhere.  
“What are you, a Pearl? A Pearl. You know you’re expendable. I can unravel you, if she’d like. I can pick apart your gem from the inside. You’re made for that, to be weak and obedient. You don’t have your own will. You can’t. You’ll accept whatever I make you.”  
She didn’t move. She didn’t try to move, though she thought there might be a good reason she should. She couldn’t remember.  
“You need me. You can’t do this. You know you shouldn’t be here, and you don’t want to be here, but someone told you to, didn’t they? But it’s all right. Now I’m telling you that you listen to me alone.”  
That seemed right. She did need direction.  
“Touch the communicator.”  
She put her fingers against one of the planes of the tetrahedron, but her hand kept glitching and spurting energy.   
“Broken? So you’re a flawed Pearl. Oh, I see, and your gem’s an oval.”  
And for some reason, that colored her thoughts yellow for a moment. ‘We’re not just pretending that pleasing someone else is good enough.’   
“Irrelevant. Stop thinking about that.”  
She tried, but more colors bled into the mental expanse she suddenly realized was blank and white. Purple—‘Just—be the you who does what you think is right, okay?’  
Blue? ‘Something you love to do, just because you find meaning in it. It makes existence worth even more, doesn’t it?’  
“You are a Pearl. Those platitudes aren’t for you. Despite your flaws, because of your flaws, you’re only capable of belonging to me.”  
Wasn’t there something else she belonged to?  
“Hmm. Who was it that told you to come here?”  
It was a human? Um Gr—no, it wasn’t, was it? He hadn’t told her to come here or do this. She’d come to the Reef of her own volition.  
“No, that’s wrong. You’ll need a memory update.”  
And she’d figured out where to go, how to solve the traps they’d run into, how to improvise solutions to the truly ridiculous number of problems she’d encountered, and how to get here, where she was so close to—  
“You fulfilled your core directive admirably, yes, very good. Being a loyal Pearl to your owner. But all Pearls belong to her. You may belong to him, but who designed you? She did. And I am, effectively, her.”  
None of that mattered. Even belonging to Greg was secondary. Pearl had made it this far on her own, a bit damaged, but without any of his direction or desires backing her. Who had designed her? That mattered even less. She wasn’t the same Pearl that had come out of her hologram shell. She’d designed herself. She was completely capable on her own. Her ideas weren’t flawless, obviously, but they also weren’t worthless. How much had she already learned about this place, her past, that she would never have discovered? She felt a reckless excitement building in her gem, that hunger to know more, explore more, share more. She laughed with an unexpected feeling of freedom. The laughter dropped quickly, however, when the voice whispered again.  
“I had hoped to cleanse you and then use you for productive purposes, since you are a Pearl. You know, you could still be valuable. Worth something more than your inconsequential feelings of—what is that, happiness? It won’t last.”  
The delight she felt now? No, that wouldn’t last. But the fulfillment of deciding for herself what her purpose was? That absolutely would.  
“You’ll regret it. You’ll make mistakes.”  
Yes.  
“You’ll break things. You’ll break yourself, you’ll hurt gems.”  
Very possibly.  
“You care about them, don’t you? You want to help them, don’t you?”  
Yes, and she would. She would do it whatever way she chose to.  
She stopped listening to the voice.  
“You can’t stop listening—“  
She’d as good as disowned Greg, or allowed him to disown her, so the order should be broken. Her entire right side flickered, and she leaned against the wall for balance. Better act now.  
Without any more hesitation, she closed her eyes and set her gem against Shell’s wall.  
“Wait! This won’t—“  
As anticipated, she linked immediately. The locked glass sphere she’d seen earlier now enclosed her, and an influx of data in foreign formats pounded through her like a storm on the ocean. Information scraped inside her gem, ripped open her tidy file management, tore up her thin-walled compartments and beat against her eyelids, bludgeoned her from the inside going every direction. She stood under the crashing waves of code, trying to absorb enough to control the force she’d let in. Slowly, it calmed, and she started to see the patterns in the currents. She breathed and let them slide through her fingers, until she caught the one she needed.  
“Rainbow Pearl 001. Reboot authorized,” she said.  
“You think you can do things like this without repercussions? You have no idea what you’re doing. You’ll make things worse in the long run.”  
The voice hadn’t quit, and Pearl knew it might be telling the truth. But she had to trust herself eventually, even if that meant having to fix mistakes over and over again. And for now, her gem was burning and beating with data too hard for her to think.  
The waves pulled back into the sea they came from, and Pearl slipped out, falling in a glitching pile on the floor.  
All the lights and electric humming stopped. Things outside the door clattered and fizzled.   
“Restarting in ten, nine, eight…”  
The countdown ended, and gentle white light glowed to life. Machinery whirred again, and Shell’s voice filled the space.  
“Welcome to the Reef. My name is Shell. How may I be of service?”


	16. Just a Little Greg

Pearl jumped away on the floating swimming pools, and I got down to business. Just me and my—okay, Pearl’s—awesome spears against the Day of the Living Electrocution Vines! Kinda long for a band name, but I still felt like I imagined the gems felt most days, going off on missions to save the world and looking cool.  
It was great for a minute or so. But it turned out Pearl’s spears weren’t as light as she made them look, and I wasn’t exactly all muscle anymore. I got the one vine off my foot. It felt prickly, like when your foot falls asleep and wakes up, but I made it halfway to the door without having to hit any more plants, just stepping over them and dragging the spears behind me. I hoped Pearl wasn’t looking.   
But then I got stuck. The vines were still going strong over here, a giant green blanket over the whole floor and up the walls and the sides of the pools and totally covering the door and popping out little sprout-fingers all over the place. It looked like the kudzu off the interstate, but more… sentient.  
Something tickled my toes. One of the baby vines was starting to creep up my jeans. I stabbed it and all its family three or four times, and probably murdered a couple generations of vines altogether. But I had a nice clear spot around me now, and I could keep them away one at a time without my arms feeling like they’d fall off.   
Pearl was too far away for me to see, or maybe she’d found a way out completely. I sliced an incoming vine and tried not to worry too hard.   
Things were pretty chill for a few minutes. Lopping off a plant tentacle here and there, but mostly just standing around.  
I was more than okay being bored. I liked just sitting and enjoying being alive. It was probably my favorite hobby.   
This was, suddenly, nowhere near that.   
Something hummed near the door, and a huge red beam shot past my head, then another one crossed in front of my nose. Way, way too close. I ducked under the next one, but I wasn’t quick enough. A laser zipped down from the ceiling and singed my chest. Another band tee bites the dust—sad day, indeed. And my skin had a burn a foot long. On the plus side, the unexpected laser shower was making most of the vines shrivel up, and I had a clear shot to the door.  
I dropped the spears and ran for it, trying to dodge laser beams. Luckily Steven and I had trained at Smiley’s laser tag for this. Less luckily, I always lost. A couple bolts got my leg through my jeans, and one came an inch from my face, but I made it to the door and panted, leaning over my knees. The alcove was keeping me safe for now, and the burns weren’t as bad as they could’ve been, but it would’ve been nice to dunk my leg in one of those pools.   
Not as nice as surviving, though. I stayed put. The door actually did still have a bunch of vines clinging to it, and without the spear, it was button-pushing time.   
I’d gotten almost all of them by the time the lasers stopped.  
It was a creepy quiet, after the barrage, but I couldn’t complain too much. I put my ear to the door.   
My heart jumped out of my mouth when a voice came out of nowhere.  
“Welcome to the Reef,” Shell said, echoing all around the room. “My name is Shell. How may I be of service?”  
I felt along the wall, looking for the hand pad that was probably there somewhere. “Uh, well, first I want to get out of this room,” I told the disembodied voice.  
“Of course.”   
The door slid open to the giant lobby.   
“And maybe some light?”  
“Right away, Um Greg Universe.”  
The lights turned on. So she remembered me? Guess that was a good thing. I looked around for Pearl. There were some black laser burn marks on the walls, but no signs of her. Blue and Yellow, though, were back to back in the middle of the warp, weapons out. A couple burns showed they hadn’t escaped the laser show either.  
“Do you guys know where Pearl is?”  
“You lost her?! Do you realize how dangerous this place can be for a Pearl?” Yellow stomped down, probably to yell at me some more, but Blue put a hand on her shoulder and she paused.  
“Yellow, we knew, and we let her go in there without us. If she’s… Whatever happened is our fault.”  
Yellow clenched her fists and turned away from me. Blue whispered something to her. I figured I should stay out of that and talk to Shell instead.  
“So Shell, you got any idea where Pearl is? Uh, R-Rainbow? Rainbow Pearl, I think?”  
“Our Pearl is currently in a confidential area of the facility.”  
Guess I’d just have to wait for her. “Is she okay?”  
“Her status is: formed, with some external damage.”  
Hopefully that just meant the thing with her hand, from that crazy dart storm.  
I waited, played with lyrics in my head. Wherever she was, she was taking her time. The other two were still whispering to each other, but they’d started walking around, looking at stuff. Guess they’d have some memories from here.  
Finally, the middle set of doors opened, and Pearl walked out.  
“Walked” was generous. She would not have passed a DUI test. Every other step she tripped over her own feet, or half of her flickered like a broken TV. Blue and Yellow froze. I limped over and caught her arms before she face planted. One of them was cold and stiff and the other felt sort of staticky, and my hand kept passing through the staticky side like she was half-ghost. The rest of her was all torn up and shaky, too. The gems were going to kill me.  
“Oh man, I knew we shouldn’t have split up! You gonna be okay? What happened?”  
She squinted up at me. “Shhh. Ugh, the light. Can you start the warp?”  
Oh geez, she really wasn’t doing so hot. She was all for dramatics, but she wasn’t even poetically moaning about anything. And letting me run the warp was a new one. I ended up dragging us both up the steps and draping the cold half of Pearl over me. I took one more look at her, and it hit me how weird it was that she was the same colors as this place when the other Pearls were pretty monochromatic. Well, whatever. But—  
“You sure you don’t want to get repaired here?”  
“Quite sure.”  
All right then. I didn’t actually know how to start a warp without that whistle thing, so Yellow handled it. In a flash (Pearl groaned), we were traveling back to the temple.


	17. Home

Garnet and Amethyst were on the couch when they landed at the temple.  
“This is not what usually happens at the Reef,” Garnet said, looking over the four of them. Yellow’s sleeves were singed, along with marks down each arm, and she tried to cover them with her hands. Blue stood behind her, but it was still clear that her skirt was a charred mess, and her legs had barely fared better. Greg’s shirt was ripped from the collar halfway to the hem, bright red burns streaked his skin, and his jeans were torn like they’d come out of a teen clothes store. Leaning against his side, Pearl’s entire form was vibrating and a little transparent now. She’d poof if a light breeze blew in, and she knew it.  
“Uh, dude, were there like, rabid Pearls attacking you or something? Steven, your dad got in a fight with a bunch of Pearls.”  
“I did not!”  
Steven thundered down the stairs. “Whaaaat?! Yikes, guys. Here, let me kiss you all better.”  
Greg’s shirt was still immodestly low cut, but the burns shimmered and disappeared. “Hey, thanks, Schtooball!”  
“Yes, thank you, Steven.” Pearl only almost fell over trying to stand up straight, and Steven kissed her gem. She solidified, energy leaks fading and frozen paralysis relaxing. The illusory spikes impaling her mind shrank to nothing. She stretched. “You wouldn’t believe how much better that feels.”  
Steven employed the hand-lick method for Blue and Yellow, and they took seats at the table.  
“So… did you get that update?” Amethyst asked. “Got any new fun facts for me?”  
Pearl made herself busy in the kitchen, washing more of the dishes that had somehow appeared since breakfast. “Well, I certainly did learn a good deal. Nothing that would interest you, however.”  
Greg, with casualness that was in no way exaggerated, sauntered over to the refrigerator. “Well will you look at that! Uh… Olives! Mm, what a taste sensation!”  
Steven raised an eyebrow, but his phone rang before he could follow up on his father’s new interest in olives and find out exactly why they’d warped in after a trip to a blender, apparently. “Connie! Hey—bye guys, glad you’re okay, we’ll talk more in a minute—yeah, what’s up?” He jogged out onto the beach for privacy.  
“What happened!? And why isn’t she back all the way?” Amethyst demanded as soon as he was gone.  
“I am also interested in what you’re about to say,” Garnet added. Threatened. Pearl stiffened.  
Greg closed the fridge and sighed. “I had to give her an order and it made things worse.”  
That was what he’d gotten out of that whole experience? Really? Pearl put down the bowl and turned off the sink.  
“You had to? An order? Like that one that Rose—Pink—that one?”  
“No! Well—yes, but—“  
It had been lurking in her subconscious since Empire City, but she hadn’t let herself think it until now. And now that she was, it was exploding in a rapid onslaught of ideas. It was time.  
“There’s something I need to do.” Pearl walked around the counter. “Ah—something we need to do. It’ll require everyone, actually. We need to start a school.”  
A grin grew on Garnet’s face, the kind where she knew exactly what was about to happen.   
“What?” Amethyst and Greg asked together.  
Steven walked back in, pocketing his phone. “So Connie says…”  
Pearl was glowing. Her form floated up to the skylight, morphing through every iteration she’d had, from particle through the growth in her shell, as the Pearl of the Reef, then as Pink’s Pearl and the reflections of herself under Rose, the selves she’d been with Steven, and finally, the Pearl who owned herself. She descended lightly.   
Greg’s eyes protruded somewhat from his head. A squeal came from Amethyst, and she and Garnet crossed the floor for a group hug, which Steven joined, laughing and likely crying, though his face was smothered in Amethyst’s hair. Blue dragged Yellow over and they linked arms around Pearl’s back. Pearl lifted the whole crew and spun them, before dropping everyone on top of her on the floor. Laughing, she untangled herself and looked at Greg.  
Greg finally pulled himself together enough to blink and sag against the counter. He looked more dazed than anything.  
“We gotta tell everybody! Steven, group text!”  
“No no, we should just bring her to Little Homeworld and see what everyone does!”  
“I call dibs on telling Pink!”  
Pearl tried to make her way past the others to talk to him, but between Amethyst hugging her legs and Steven hanging around her neck and Garnet patting her shoulder poofs with satisfaction, she couldn’t go more than a step.  
The chaos only increased when Bismuth, Peridot, and Lapis warped in, then Pink Pearl and some Chalcedonies, and gradually, it seemed half of Little Homeworld and a majority of the town’s humans were drawn to the beach house. Greg got up, maneuvered through the warm mass of party-ers, and microwaved a hot dog. When he flopped onto the couch to eat it, Pearl finally pulled away from the crowd and sat next to him.  
It would take at least two or three musical numbers to address the last two weeks, but she pulled out her bass and played an intro he’d remember.  
“Independent together, huh?”  
“Well, I only know the first few bars, but I think I’ll pick up the rest quickly.”  
She didn’t wait for his reply, but put away the guitar and rejoined Amethyst’s impromptu dance party. She caught just a glimpse of Greg, leaning his head back against the bookshelf. Until the next song came on and he jumped up.  
”Hey, can’t play this one if I’m not on the floor! Mister Universe is the king of Macarena!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! We made it! This was a pretty significant thing for me, actually finishing a fic. And I ended up learning a lot, like sometimes it’s worth just getting something out there even though it’s not ideal. 
> 
> This whole thing ended up carrying themes for me based on getting married young, and the process of personal growth. A good spouse wants you to be independent and grow with them, wants to be with you but not control you. And mine is the best husband I could have imagined, and I’m even more sure of that 9 years into it. But you don’t have much of a self, necessarily, if you’ve spent your whole life just trying to be obedient and make everyone happy, and been prepared from childhood to be subservient to your future husband (it may have been unintended, but I definitely misinterpreted the intent and took it to heart). It’s weird and hard to learn how to figure out what you actually want, what your dreams actually are, and what you really want to do to make the world better, even when the person “in charge” of you doesn’t want to be in charge of you, and really wants you to be independent and live your dreams.
> 
> But I also just wanted to have fun with totally out-there theories about gems and Pearl’s background and stuff. ;)
> 
> Oh—there are also like 5 chapters that didn’t make it into the final cut about my theory on Spinel’s poison injector and more. I didn’t forget, it just didn’t add to this story that much, I think. Could be wrong. Maybe it did need to be tied up. *shrug*
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking around! Take good care of yourself, and go make your dreams happen!


End file.
